Baby, You Don't Even Know
by rubygoddess
Summary: Some gal's missed her monthly, and it's not who we all think it is! But don't think Spike and Buffy aren't somehow involved (and no, it wasn't an orgy). Why, is that another update . . . I think it is! *R/R please*
1. Baby-less Buffy

Disclaimer: Characters not mine, wish they were, or the mess of Season 6 would have never happened (grumble grumble)  
  
Summary: Someone in Sunnydale has skipped their monthly, and it's not who we all think it is. But don't think somehow Buffy and Spike aren't involved (and no, it wasn't an orgy). I promise, it's not going to be another "Buffy's preggers" story I swear . . . although I like to take ideas that lots of people use and twist them around in my strange, scary head to suit my purposes. Set around the beginning of S7.  
  
Pairing: B/S, X/A, maybe some action for Willow later, haven't decided yet, lol  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
A/N: I got all kinds of fics up the yin-yang, it's probably a little dumb to be starting another one with school and all, but I'll try and see if this is worth continuing, I just had the idea and couldn't pass up the opportunity to try it out. The premise is a little ridiculous, but we'll see how it goes. Also, I said this is set around S7, but I'm not sure just how far, because I don't really want to have to go through the crap of getting Buffy and Spike over their issues with the obligatory sniping at each other when Spike returns and eventually getting back together. I think I'll just have it be AU where Spike has returned and already gotten back together with Buffy. It'll mess up things time-wise a bit, but hey, I can do whatever the hell I want with my story, right?  
  
  
  
Chapter One: Baby-less Buffy  
  
  
  
"He's so cute! He's so precious!"  
  
Buffy was bobbing the curly blonde mop-topped toddler on her knee and it gurgled responsively in delight.  
  
"Isn't he the cutest?" she proclaimed to Dawn, sitting next to her on the couch.  
  
"He's cute as cute babies go. I mean, pretty standard if you ask me," Dawn responded, gazing at the charming creature casually.  
  
Buffy gave her sister a stormy look and wrapped her arms around the child defensively. "How dare you compare this baby to the world of inadequate other babies? He's like . . . Lord of the Babies. And look! Look at his cheeks! Aren't they the cutest thing ever known to man?" She nudged the velvety mound of soft skin with delight. "Like buttah, I tell you!"  
  
Dawn laughed. "I've never seen you like this before, Buffy. Babies certainly have an effect on you."  
  
"Yes but especially HIM. Because he's mine, mine, all MINE." She hugged the squealing baby to her chest, carefully, as to not break his fragile bones with her Slayer strength.  
  
"Yeah, except for the part where he's NOT," Dawn pointed out. She glanced down at her watch. "And Mrs. Pfiefferson is coming in ten minutes to pick James up, so don't go and get too attached to him now."  
  
Buffy frowned despondently at her babysitting charge. "A world of sorry to be letting you go, little feller," she pouted. She leaned down towards him conspiratorially "If I had it my way, I'd scrap the twenty bucks and keep you always."  
  
"Since when did you go all fawny and Mother Hen-y around kiddies?" Dawn asked, making a face as she began to clear the crayons and mess of toys that James had left in his wake.  
  
Buffy shrugged, still cradling James, who was chewing on a lock of her golden hair. "I don't know, just recently I guess. I mean, I can't help it, kids are . . . CUTE." She smiled blissfully as she tweaked James' little button nose. Getting up, she bounced him up and down as she paced around the room. "Plus you know," she started in a tone more reflective. "I just keep thinking about it in the Slayer point of view. The whole 'you'll probably die before you reach the ripe ol' age of twenty-five'. It makes you want to take things at a non-leisurely kind of pace."  
  
Wide-eyes from Dawn. "You mean, you're actually thinking about having a. . ." she gestured towards James with incredulity. " . . . A THAT?"  
  
An expression of conflicted wistfulness passed over Buffy's face at the inquiry. "No," she replied, rather unconvincingly. "Because, umm, hey, only prospective fathers include an undead ghoul here." She deflated a little more, thinking of the Not-So-Much-Evil-Anymore Dead she called her boyfriend and his glaringly deficient supply of swimmers. Seeing Dawn's wary glance, she straightened and donned a cheerful air. "Look, no one's thinking about heavy plans for imminent mom-age right now, not to worry."  
  
Dawn still gave her sister a skeptical half-frown. "I take it back, you were always like this. I remember now. When we were kids, all you would do was play Mother Dearest. Even if you couldn't find your dolls, you wrapped a loaf of bread in a blanket and sang lullabies to it. You would get mad at Mom if you didn't get to hold me as much as she did. You made me call you Mommy until I was at least two."  
  
"So I have a highly attuned maternal instinct." Buffy continued focusing on James as he turned his attentions to gnawing her pink shirt, already coated in drool. "Understandable. I mean, I AM the Slayer. Protector and defender of all that's righteous and good in the world. Maybe the Powers That Be bestowed that instinct in me so I'd care more about saving the world, not slack on the job."  
  
Dawn rolled her eyes. "Yeah, but you made a terrible mother to me then. You dropped me twice and tried to make me eat glue."  
  
"Hey! It wasn't my fault! To a six year old kid, a glue and milk bottle almost looks identical!"  
  
"Ha, and you call yourself Protector of the Righteous. Try Super- Wrongness."  
  
The doorbell rang loudly, interrupting such loving sisterly bonding. Getting up from the floor, Dawn answered the door, sweeping it out widely to display a ragged and harried thirty-something mother wearing a large sweatshirt, covered with dried spit (presumably the work of Little James) with her hair all mussed together in one of those horrendously huge ponytail holders. "Hey," Mrs. Pfiefferson sighed breathlessly. "Sorry I'm late, the clothes at the cleaners were taking forever, and when I stopped by the market to get James' formula, the line was tediously long there too." The woman looked ten seconds away from a total meltdown.  
  
"It's okay, I enjoyed looking after James," Buffy chirped happily, handing the child to his mother's weary arms. "He's a pleasure to take care of."  
  
"Oh yeah, he's a real joy." His mother looked too gruff to sound sincere. She shifted James in her arms when he began screaming and tugging her hair. "He wasn't too much of a racket was he? He has a massive appetite for destruction and thinks himself a prodigy of a graffiti artist. You kept him away from any permanent markers and walls, I hope?"  
  
Buffy laughed. "No, he was a fine little critter during his visit. A few mishaps here and there, and I won't even began to describe the state of the kitchen, but he was, for the most part, a sweet lil' angel." She kissed his forehead and was rewarded with a gleeful spat in the face by James while Dawn suppressed a giggle.  
  
Mrs. Pfiefferson smiled weakly. "I used to think that the first few months I had him, that he was the most perfect thing in the world who couldn't do a speck of wrong . . . then he learned how to crawl. He's been known as the household devil ever since." She looked affectionately down James and nudged his sausage-like arms gently. She looked back up at Buffy. "Trust me, you'll know what it's like when you have one. You're lucky you don't know now."  
  
Buffy was instantly thrown back into a world of thoughtful wistfulness. Her hand went absently to her stomach, where she knew a child would likely never be. It felt hopelessly hollow and cold inside. It pained her beyond description to see a fat adorably tiny mini-human in front of her and know that she could never have one. But she pretended to feel only advantageous relief as she responded to Mrs. Pfiefferson. "Yeah," she smiled breezily. "A lucky one I am." She accepted the money Mrs. Pfiefferson handed her and gave a last little kiss to dear James as his mother carried him out to the massive monster mini-van in the front yard. Then, quietly and a bit somberly, she closed the door and slumped against it, noting how quiet and lonely the house suddenly became with absence of churlish and childish screams echoing throughout the rooms. Dawn detected the faint sadness in her sister's expression and neared her carefully.  
  
"You okay?"  
  
"Huh?" Buffy shook her hair out, breaking her reverie. "Yeah, I'm okay."  
  
"You were lying weren't you? You don't really think you're lucky," Dawn murmured quietly.  
  
Buffy sprang back into action, clearing the broken crayons from the floor. "What are you talking about Dawn, I'm fine."  
  
"No you're not. You're serious about the kids thing. You want to be just like Mrs. Pfiefferson with her bad hair and her soccer-mom car and her slime-covered t-shirts. You want to be a mom."  
  
Buffy paused and reveled in the thought of how indeed nice it would be to be Mrs. Pfiefferson, with her messy cotton clothes, endlessly picking up toys as James ran shrieking about the house in his darling little bare feet, waiting for her husband to come home. He'd lurch into the door at 5, smiling tiredly after a long day at the office and wanting to know when dinner was going to be. She wondered how Spike would look in a business suit with briefcase. She blinked twice and shook her head again. "No I don't," she insisted.  
  
"Liar. I saw you looking at Mrs. Pfiefferson holding James as if the sight was heaven on earth. I saw you touching your belly as if you wish you had a James of your own."  
  
Buffy sighed and sank into the couch. "Maybe I did. Is there anything wrong with that?"  
  
Dawn softened a bit and went over to sit next to her. "Of course not . . ." she paused, not knowing what to say next. In a quieter tone, she asked, "Have you ever talked about it with Spike?"  
  
Buffy scoffed, finding the very idea ridiculous. "Please. That issue? With Spike? It'd be like asking him to tell me what personality traits he likes most in Angel. Why would he ever want a baby?"  
  
"Why wouldn't he? He loves you more than anything, why wouldn't he want to start a family with you?"  
  
"Dawn . . ." Buffy sighed, obviously uncomfortable to be talking about a subject she had long considered. ". . . It's not even an option. Spike and I couldn't even start a family if we wanted to. Rule the first regarding vampires: not prime procreational partners." Her mouth got tight when thinking of long-ago aspirations that had come to the same realization, and how much pain it had caused then. With Spike, it was even more painful, because she resolutely knew she would be spending the rest of her life, however long it may be, with him. The addition of a child would make their union even more blissful, so the knowledge it could never be had gained a sharper sting.  
  
"You don't know that," Dawn pointed out. "We ARE living on the Hellmouth, all kinds of weird, funky, mystical high jinks takes place here. So you never know. That and you _are_ in a fate-defying relationship anyways. Souled vampire, vampire slayer, doesn't happen a lot." Her eyes went wide as she amended, "Well okay, so not more than twice."  
  
"I don't know, whatever," Buffy muttered, getting back up from the couch and moving towards the door when the doorbell rang. "All I know is that it doesn't help me to be dwelling on stuff that will probably never have the likelihood of happening, so why think about it? I'm obviously not meant for babies. I'm baby-less Buffy. One who does without the babies. It's no big. I'll just not think about it, no ponderance of the joys of motherhood whatsoever. The last thing I want to do is think about having children." Flinging open the door, Willow stepped into the foyer with a pinched, white face, wringing her hands nervously.  
  
"Buffy, I'm pregnant," she announced gravely.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
TBC...okay so I haven't really explained anything yet, but I'll get to it, I hope I can post the next chapter really soon! 


	2. Weeping Willow

Chapter 2: Weeping Willow  
  
  
  
Willow paused a beat while Buffy gaped speechlessly, biting her lip and rolling her eyes with usual uneasiness. "Okay, so that sounded a lot more appropriately conversational in my head but umm . . ." She shifted on the balls of her heels uneasily. ". . . Yeah."  
  
Buffy refused to let her eyes return from their bugged-out state. She cleared her throat multiple times to fight past the sudden lump of disbelief that had formed there. Finally, her voice came out in raggedy pants before erupting into a, "GET OUT!"  
  
Willow's face fell and she slumped. "Buffy, of all the people to stigmatize me---" she began angrily.  
  
Buffy's eyes widened apologetically. "Oh no, Wills, I don't mean GET OUT get out but um . . ." She pondered a better response but came up with nothing, so she merely repeated, "GET OUT!"  
  
Willow sighed. "It's true. I just came from the doctor's office and the test came out positive. Look." She rummaged into her authentically beaded Indian handbag (as authentic as Urban Outfitters at least) and withdrew a plastic white stick with a shaking hand. "I've been carrying this around for days now, I just keep looking at it as if it's a joke . . ." She handed the pregnancy test to Buffy, who was suddenly shaky herself, gazing down at the piece of plastic like it was a ticking time bomb. The blue plus sign on the test was fading, but still glaring clear enough to incite mouth- droppage. Willow was blinking a mile a minute, obviously still in shock as she continued. "I thought it was a fluke, a-a f-fluke of the highest order, but I never miss my period and . . . a-and then, I stopped by Dr. Mercer's today and she told me . . ." she waved her hand in the air, trying to tangibly grasp the confounding prospect. "THIS . . ."  
  
Buffy was still staring at the test, but Dawn obviously recovered more swiftly than her sister and snatched the stick out of her hand.  
  
"W-Willow, this is big . . . t-this is huge!" Dawn was saying in a tone that reflected more excitement than shock. She shook the test frantically at Willow, as if the poor girl hadn't seen it before, and smiled fiercely. "Y-you're like . . . a Mrs. Pfiefferson!"  
  
Willow frowned in puzzlement. "What?" She snatched the test back and sighed again. "Look, I know this is big. Too big. I-I don't know if I can handle it," Willow's face began to crumble visibly, as if pregnancy hormones had begun to commence a little early. "I mean, I'm still trying to put my life back together after all that happened last year and now this? I-I----" She looked like she was about to keel over as she tried to gulp deeply for air in panic, and it was then that Buffy suddenly awoke from the stilling state of shock and led her into the house.  
  
Getting Willow settled on the couch, Dawn went off into the kitchen to prepare a cup of her favorite herbal tea while Buffy seated herself next to her hysterical best friend. She tried to pace herself, ease Willow into a place where she felt calm enough to talk about it, but couldn't resist unleashing the flood of questions that had suddenly gathered on her tongue. Pausing for a minute while Willow ceased her hyperventilation, she launched abruptly into the interrogation." Okay Willow, what happened? I mean, what, where, who-----"  
  
"Buffy! Couldn't you try some of that best-friendly subtlety in crises like these?"  
  
Buffy bit her lip ruefully and her eyes fluttered downwards as she struggled to find that subtlety somewhere deep inside the rocky emotions she presently felt, but didn't succeeded, so instead stayed quiet for a few minutes.  
  
After a bit of deafening silence, finally Willow spoke, accompanied again by a weary sigh. "Dr. Mercer says I'm about three or four months along," she murmured softly.  
  
"And you didn't know the whole time?"  
  
"I don't see how I would, this is like the last thing I would expect to happen to me. But, hey, didn't expect to go off-the-wall evil either, so I guess my intuition isn't worth much."  
  
Buffy waited awhile for an appropriate time to respond. "So . . . . . so um, who was it, Willow?"  
  
Frowning, Willow roughly got up from the couch and began pacing the room heatedly. "I KNEW you were going to ask that. All this is to you is some sordid, tragic 'slut-suddenly-turns-all-single-mother' scenario, isn't it? It's the kind of stuff millions of bored housewives tune into daytime talk shows for. Entertainment in which they get to feel all morally superior to the girls on TV. weeping and blubbering about how stupid they were to get themselves pregnant by some nameless Joe Schmoe----"  
  
"Willow!" Buffy cut her off sharply. "You're my best friend, I would NEVER think that about you!" Slumping her shoulders, she followed Willow off the couch and went to put a hand to her shoulder. "Look, I know I haven't exactly handled this very well, my foot kind of heard the news and made a mad dash for my mouth, but . . . talk to me. I want to help you out, all I can. And I know that's why you came, because you want to talk this through." She smiled a bit, squeezing Willow's shoulder gently in a loving gesture. "We're best friends. This talking thing is what we do."  
  
Willow searched Buffy's eyes for understanding and found a wave of it lying there, so she softened. "Well," she began again, "I'm not exactly handling the news in my best manner either."  
  
Buffy laughed softly. "You're allowed to handle it anyway you want." Then, with her face growing more serious, she added quietly. "So do you know what you're going to do?"  
  
"You mean about the whole pregnancy in general?" Willow gazed down at her hands as she settled back on the couch, heaving a breathy sigh. " . . .Well, it couldn't come at a worse time. I'm just starting my last year of college, trying to get my bachelor's degree in the metaphysical sciences, not to mention struggling to get my life back together in general . . . a baby is just not supposed to be happening right now!" She wrung her hands helplessly.  
  
"Willow . . ." Buffy gazed sympathetically at her best friend, but a part of her yearned desperately to be in her position. How ironic it was that the one thing Buffy wanted most happened to Willow, who knew it was the LAST thing she wanted. "So . . . do you think you want to . . . you know . . ." She let the last part of the sentence linger with tact while she tried to say it as casually as she could.  
  
"Have an abortion?" Willow replied with unusual bluntness. She continued gnawing on her lip uncertainly. "I don't know, my mind hasn't even registered the fact that there's actually life in me, let alone go over the choice whether to take it away. I mean, all these years I was so pro- choice, post-feminism, Steinem chick, and this couldn't be any more ideal for that kind of decision but . . . I don't know, it doesn't feel right somehow." As usual, Willow was nervously letting hand motions and pauses express the emotions she was unable to articulate. "One of the whole Wiccan tenets is the idea that you kind of have to accept things that come to you, try to see if it fulfills some purpose and to see it through. And above everything, you're supposed to show toleration to everything with a life source in nature . . . how am I supposed to call myself a Wiccan if I do something so disrespectful to a life?"  
  
Buffy cocked her head, still finding it hard to believe. LIFE was taking place and burgeoning and flourishing within her best friend's body. She had created a human being, and Buffy felt impossibly envious of her at the moment. "It is really your choice, Willow," she said soothingly, although she knew that if faced with the predicament, there'd be no choice for her. She'd hold her hands to her new child's haven, cradling her flat stomach with so much joy that she'd be afraid to let it go until the nine months were over.  
  
Willow nodded, but still looked relatively like a deer-in-headlights. "I still have the rest of the gang to tell . . . I actually asked them to come in thirty, but I figured it would be easier to tell you first."  
  
Buffy patted one of Willow's hands, but hesitated, curiosity becoming to strong to control. "Umm, Willow? I know you really don't want to talk about it, and maybe it's not the time but . . ." she shrugged tensely. "The father?"  
  
Willow buried her head in her hands, red hair flailing about her in wispy strings, and her head shook momentarily, making the auburn locks wave about her like the long streamers of a willow tree. Looking back at Buffy with an apprehensive face, her voice nearly beckoned over a whisper in response. "I don't know Buffy . . . I don't even know."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
AN: Okay, it's not my best work and for the most part, it's unedited so excuse some typos, I'll probably fix it later (I'm a little distracted with schoolwork). And I know that explained nothing further either regarding the whole B/S involvement. I tried to not get so long-winded with Willow's feeling regarding the pregnancy but I couldn't help it. The next chapter will kind of explain how Buffy and Spike fit into Willow being pregnant, but I can't help being so long-winded, sorry, lol. 


	3. Surprises

AN: I forgot to mention that in the story Xander and Anya have reconciled somewhat and are back together. I just couldn't leave what was one of the most dysfunctionally funny relationships of BtVS apart. Also, to any readers of my other fics, sorry for the hold up with updating those, with this fic going and me being abound with schoolwork, my inspiration for the other two long fics I've been working on has been a little zapped, I'll update them as soon as I can!  
  
  
  
Chapter 3: Surprises  
  
  
  
"How can you not know?" Xander exploded, arms gesticulating madly. His hair was rumpled as he threaded his hands roughly through it, and his face was a red mask of bewilderment. He was pacing the floor with such feeling that Buffy feared for the state of the carpet. The whole house was in sad need of repair, the last thing she needed was to replace the carpet if Xander wore a hole into it. Giles appeared glazed over on the couch, still too perplexed to make any motion to indicate that the news hadn't caused his heart to stop completely. Buffy was over by Willow on the couch, her arms around her as if she was trying to act as a physical support system for her friend at the moment. Dawn was struck silent and sat at Willow's feet on the floor. Anya was indifferently lounging in a chair filing her nails.  
  
"Why is it so important to you, Xander?" Willow asked agitatedly, hurt slightly by her best friend's rather animated response to the situation.  
  
"Well the knowledge of who did this to you would really help me thin the ranks of scumbags I have to track down and KILL."  
  
Buffy sighed. "Let's not get all vigilante just yet, Xander, maybe a little sensitivity is in order just about now."  
  
Xander was too engulfed in blinding male rage to register the words and continued pacing. "Girls do sensitivity. Guys do fist-to-cuffs, heavy- handed ass kicking."  
  
Anya frowned, ceasing her primping for a bit. "You do that? Or a better question, you do that well?"  
  
"Look Wills, all I'm saying is that you don't let a guy get away with something like this! The least you can do is tell the guy what happened . . ." Then, when he appeared to easing down from his hard masculine stoicism, he added, "Then proceed to chop off his genitalia."  
  
Ignoring the last comment, Buffy turned to Willow. "You know Willow, he's right. Whoever did thi-----the father," she corrected herself uneasily, "kind of has a right to know that you're having his kid . . . if you are that is."  
  
"And I understand that kind of reasoning. But the loophole in that reasoning is that I have no idea who IS the father."  
  
Buffy shook her head, not grasping this concept at all. "I don't understand Willow, did he not tell you his name or something? A one-night stand, what?"  
  
Willow huffed frustratedly. "That's right, you don't understand. I haven't been . . . I-I haven't been with a guy since Oz." She gazed at everyone seriously, eyebrows cocked high for emphasis.  
  
Xander clenched his teeth. "So Oz is back in town? He's the one who did this to you? I knew it!" He pounded one fist into the other. "I always knew that were-boy was up to no good! Oh he disguised it well with that laid- back, laconic-man stoicism aura, but he wasn't fooling me! He could play girls the way he played his Fender-----"  
  
"Xander!" Willow interrupted. "I haven't been with Oz! I haven't been with ANYONE since . . ." she paused, growing quiet and somberly elegiac. " . . . Since Tara . . ." She didn't need to finish, for all suddenly and painfully understood, and they fell fittingly quiet in remembrance.  
  
Anya, with her usual bumbling candor, broke the silence with a loud, "I don't get it."  
  
Xander turned around to face his ex-fiancée. "Get what?"  
  
"Well, from what I've learned in my eleven-hundred year stay on Earth, a willing male is needed in order to carry out procreation correctly. I mean, that's the only way it's done. A man has good and proper intercourse with an ovulating female and---"  
  
"Anya, stop!" Xander demanded, slamming his hands to his ears in revulsion.  
  
"---Unless you were artificially inseminated, but you would have to be pretty desperate to make it with a robot," Anya concluded, wrinkling her nose into a frown.  
  
"Thanks for the sex ed lesson Anya, but I did NOT get artificially inseminated. I'm as surprised about this as you all are. Why would I want a kid now? And the whole "one-night stand with a guy" theory? Not of the real conceivable. Cause I mean, um hey, total lesbian here. I kept asking Dr. Mercer if it was a mistake, because it doesn't seem possible, but she kept saying I was already three months along----"  
  
"Did you say three months?" asked Giles, who, up to this point, had been stricken with silence.  
  
Willow nodded worriedly. "Three or four months . . . which is around the time---"  
  
"You completely succumbed to the black majicks," Giles finished. His hand absently went to his head, reaching for his glasses to wipe them with usual nervousness, but upon realizing he was not wearing them, he settled for wiping a glass ashtray sitting on the coffee table.  
  
"Um, yeah . . . that's what I was kind of what I was worried about. When I was all tripped up on the magic, my mind got kind of hazy. I mean, I remember most things I did, like um skinning a guy alive . . . 'cause you know . . . that'll stay with you, but . . . a lot of the time, there are just these blank moments, things I can't remember saying or . . . doing . . ."  
  
Buffy and Xander exchanged looks. This was the first they heard of Willow blacking out when she descended into the horrible and dark abyss of power last spring. Which, considering all the destructive and hurtful things she had done to them, was something that Buffy and Xander looked upon as a good thing. The guilt over what she had done to Warren had eaten her alive the weeks and months following the chaos, with the loss of Tara adding to her pain. And now poor Willow was given yet another burden to handle. Except Buffy would never look upon it as a burden.  
  
"Wait." Anya held one hand up in the air. "So what you're saying is . . . that you think you boned up some guy while on the Majickal Mystery Tour?"  
  
Willow made a plaintive face in response to Anya's terseness. "That's not exactly how I'd put it, but yes. I was thinking about it, and considered that's what probably happened. I could have slept with someone while on the majicks and forgotten about it." She suddenly looked disgusted at herself and bit her lip. Buffy sensed what her best friend was feeling and patted her shoulder softly.  
  
"So are you saying . . . wait. That means ANY guy in Sunnydale could be the father! Or even worse, with Sunnydale being Demontown, USA, anything. . . you could have done something with some beastie and forgotten all about it!" Xander's eyes nearly boggled out of his skull at the idea.  
  
"Xander!" Buffy chastised with a venomous glare.  
  
Willow groaned and again buried her face in her hands. "Oh god, he's right! I could be giving birth to a demon-child! I'm a whore!"  
  
"You are not a whore! You aren't going have a demon-child!" Buffy comforted, watching her best friend's self-esteem fall into shambles right before her eyes. Urgently, Buffy turned to Giles. "We have to find the guy who did this to her!" she hissed in a lower tone. "Her child could have horns for all we know!"  
  
"Birthing such a child would be rather painful," Anya pointed out.  
  
Giles continued to rub the ashtray absentmindedly, not noticing the fact that it was already a high-crystal shine. This was beyond him and the perplexed expression on his face made that clear to the others. "I-I . . ." he stammered, knowing that everyone was expecting him to supply an answer with all his watcher inclinations.  
  
"Well?" Buffy's eyes went wide with impatience as she rocked Willow, who continued moaning over her status as potential mother to a possible hell- creature.  
  
"My child will give new meaning to the term 'dog-faced girl'!" Willow was wailing.  
  
Giles rubbed his head frantically, trying desperately to think of a solution out of this mess. Suddenly a mental light bulb flashed through his head and he stood up with one finger waving in the air. "Eureka!" he exclaimed.  
  
"You actully say Eureaka?" Anya quipped with one eyebrow cocked.  
  
"A-a spell! A spell that helps you locate parts of your biological make-up within a ten-mile radius!"  
  
"Translated, means a paternity test right?" Buffy frowned at her ex- watcher's inability to elucidate without using more than twenty words when only two were needed.  
  
"Y-yes, a paternity test of sorts. It allows you to roughly pinpoint those made of the same genetic make-up of you. Mostly used for adults looking for parents and siblings and such, but I don't see why it can't be done with an unborn child."  
  
"You mean you can determine exactly where the father is?" Dawn asked.  
  
"Well, as I said, only if he is within a ten-mile radius. It's not that complicated a procedure, only requires the use of a few objects. Of course, if you'd rather not----" Giles started uneasily, knowing Willow would be cautious when it came to any encounters with magic. She had come a long way in weaning off her desire to use it, to place a spell on her now might be too much temptation. Willow just shook her head solemnly, grasping her stomach at the same time.  
  
"I'm good Giles, don't worry about it. This spell needs to be done. I have to know who and WHAT did this to me."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Giles returned from his apartment thirty minutes later with the supplies. Those thirty minutes had been heavily stressful for poor Willow as she pondered what possibly could be inside her.  
  
"What if it's a Charebra demon?! Those are nothing but slime and tentacles! Or, or, maybe Firah'shiac demon?! Those are just covered in those long spiny, prickly things, oh God, oh GOD!"  
  
"Breathe Willow, breathe," Buffy commanded, handing her a paper bag as Willow began to hyperventilate once more.  
  
Giles set up his supplies, laying a crystal, various herbs and a map before him. "That's for locating the father," he explained. He settled down in front of Willow and pricked one of her fingers with a needle, letting a drop of her blood trickle into a small little sack, soaking into the herbs that were already packed in. Wrapping the small bag to the crystal, he chanted a few words out of an old Celtic text. Immediately the crystal began to glow in response, and Giles veered it towards the map, it leading Giles' hands along the sheet of lines and squiggles of streets.  
  
"Wow," breathed Dawn admiringly as she hunched over to watch. "They should really market and mass produce that thing. What's it called again?"  
  
"A Thesybrian crystal," murmured Giles, trying to concentrate on his task.  
  
"I call it every deadbeat dad's nightmare, that's what I call it," Xander cut snidely.  
  
The crystal was continuing to glow as Giles grasped on it and it passed over the map with speed. Up Blevins Lane, down Main, passing over Browndale, all the way up to Revello, up, up to a certain familiar address.  
  
"What the---" Giles wrinkled his brow and confusion as the crystal glowed and shook with particular fervency. "It's indicating that this house . . . that the child is biologically linked to someone in this house-----" His puzzlement was deepened when the crystal jolted away from the map, yanking Giles and his arms into the air, standing upright and glistening powerfully. "T-the father appears to be getting closer, look how it's throbbing," Giles stammered, while all the rest watched the crystal in suspense.  
  
"Closer?!" Willow yelped. "Lock the doors, bolt the windows, what if it's a seething demon-man coming to collect his progeny?!"  
  
"Giles, are you sure that the father's in the house? There's no guy here except----"  
  
"Xander!" Anya suddenly glared at her boyfriend with frenzied rage. "How could you?!"  
  
Stricken, Xander was up and started in protest. "What, An, it wasn't me!"  
  
Anya had already stalked up to Xander, pelting him with weak slaps all over his head. "H-how could you?!" she repeated lividly. "How could you do this to me, Xander Harris?! You thought you could relive history?! Thought it wasn't enough to break Cordelia's heart, so you decided to break mine the same way?!"  
  
"An, s-stop, it WASN'T me!" Xander yelled helplessly, trying to guard against Anya's clumsy swings.  
  
"I should have KNOWN that whole gay-heterosexual-Will and Grace-best friends-crap was just a front! I could just FEEL the sexual tension between you two! Why don't you just go and marry her, Xander?! Then hey! Maybe you can leave HER at the alter too!" Anya was on the rampage and it wasn't a pretty sight.  
  
"Anya, it's not Xander!" thundered Giles, now ridden with a migraine. "The crystal is clearly directed away from Xander, signifying it is someone else." He maintained his gaze at the crystal, which was rumbling at full speed and glowing brilliantly. " . . . Someone who is coming right . . ." Everyone held their breath and fixed their eyes on the crystal with such concentration that they didn't notice Spike lumber into the living room with a bucket of fried chicken under his arm.  
  
"Buffy, where's the hot sauce?" he asked lazily, gnawing on a cold drumstick. Buffy absently gazed at her boyfriend, then suddenly understanding, widened her eyes and gaped at him with incredulity. The rest similarly followed suit.  
  
" . . . Now," Giles finished softly, the crystal tumbling from his hands as he stared at Spike hazily. He could feel the vague beginnings of a fainting spell grip him, and Buffy, Willow, Xander, Dawn and Anya could relate.  
  
Spike twitched uncomfortably, growing increasingly uneasy as they gawked at him in silence. Off their looks, he finally swallowed the mouthful of chicken he had been chewing and shrugged restlessly. "What?" he chirped innocently.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Another ANs: I know, I know, I ramble a lot. And I know the ending might seem weird with Spike in Africa the whole time Willow went evil and all, hence confusion over him being the father in general, but again, I'll explain later. So please continue reading! 


	4. Whose Bundle of Joy?

Chapter Four: Whose Bundle of Joy?

The brown paper bag was fluttering and rattling with new life as, once again, oxygen was being desperately sought from it. 

"Breathe Buffy, breathe," Willow soothed helplessly. Buffy grasped onto the paper bag for dear life, frenziedly gasping for air and causing the bag to groan in an in-and-out crunching sound. It was one of the very few audible noises floating around the stunned room at the moment. 

Spike neared his ladylove and leaned down worriedly. "Pet, what's wrong?" he demanded. "What's happened?"

Buffy gazed up blearily at Spike. Still breathing hard, she shook her head in a daze and fought to form comprehensible words. Instead she uttered a wild half-shriek, half grunt and darkly turned back to the paper bag. Confounded, Spike turned to the rest of the Scoobies for explanation, but found most of them unresponsive. Willow was shaking her head nonsensically whilst comforting Buffy, Xander paced the floor with hyper fervency, Anya carelessly returned her attentions back to her nails and Dawn just stared at Spike with an unsettling fascinated expression on her face. Among all of them, Giles seemed only vaguely deadened with disbelief, so Spike turned to him. 

"'Ere, Jeeves." Spike strode up him and jabbed Giles back to life. "Maybe _you_ can tell me what's going on here."

Giles blinked out of a self-imposed trance and turned back to Spike almost alarmed. "What? Oh . . . o-oh, umm, yes . . . uh, it appears that um . . . something's . . . happened."

Spike snorted impatiently. "You don't say? Geez Rupes, couldn't figure it for myself, glad to know you could clear that up for me with all your watcherly insight. Come on now, what the bloody hell has gone on with you lot?"

"Well . . . uh, it s-seems that Willow, umm, is with . . . child."

Spike cocked his head at Willow with an expression of neutral and congratulatory surprise. "Is that all? Red's got a bun in the oven, has she? That's certainly . . . unexpected."

"And it appears that you're the father, Spike," added Giles softly. 

Neutralism was replaced by self-righteous indignation immediately as Spike's mouth dropped in protest. "I bloody well am _not_!"

"You are!" Dawn nearly shrieked, bouncing up and down with radioactive energy. "The crystal said so, you're the father!"

Spike hardened and studied everyone with suspicion. "Crystal? Father? Look, if this is your idea of a joke . . . or a drug binge----"

"We're serious, Spike. We've performed a spell to locate the father of Willow's child and . . ." Giles took an intake of air, still trying to recover from the revelation. "We evidently found him."

Spike turned his head around to double-check and see if there was anyone else Giles could possibly have been indicating. "This is insane," he announced loudly. "You all have lost your bloody marbles. I'm no one's daddy. Look Red, I understand you might be in some kind of trouble, but trying to corner _me_ into providing child support is a low trick-----"

"Me?!" Willow sat up, incensed. "I'm not trying to trick anybody! You were the one who did this to _me_, Mister!"

"What are you yammering on about? I haven't done _anything_ to you! Why would I? I'm not one of those dumbly males who has to assert their manhood by making it with a dy----"

"Quiet you!" Xander stalked up Spike, fuming. "Don't talk about her like that and _don't _try to deny this." He jutted his face next to Spike and glared at him menacingly. "Finally . . . a justifiable reason to kick your ass."

Spike pushed Xander away roughly and implored the rest to listen to reason. "Aren't you all forgetting one bit? _Vampire_ here, undead, far removed from life, far removed from giving it. I'm strong and virile for my age, but sadly, I can't say the same for my boys." He indicated what he meant by nodding his head downward.

Everyone in the room blinked twice as if they were hearing this for the first time. "Hey," Anya remarked, sitting up in her chair. "He's right."

"Damn straight I'm right. I couldn't knock Red up if I tried." He glanced over quickly at Buffy and added in a diffident tone, "Not like I'd want to, either."

"So what does this mean?" Buffy demanded, regaining the ability to articulate. "What about the crystal?"

Giles stroked his chin thoughtfully. "It indeed makes little sense," he muttered quietly. 

"Hey and another thing," Anya added tersely. "Willow said she got pregnant three months ago when she went all varicose-veiny with the . . . yeah, anyway . . . Spike wasn't even here then. He was in Africa."

"That's right!" affirmed Spike loudly. "I was frolicking with wildebeests, wrastling with lions, endowing myself with a soul." He sat down and wrapped his arms around his obviously agitated girlfriend in an outward gesture of loving devotion. "All for the sake of you, ducks."

Buffy made a face and was too riled up to fall for his rueful tricks. "Stop it, Spike," she hissed in her I'm-the-Slayer-and-You're-Still-Stake-Fodder-So-Don't-Push-Me kind of voice, avoiding his arms and scooting over near Willow. 

Spike pursed his lips impatiently, but immediately knew she meant business, so he scooted away dutifully. "Stopping now." Scourge of Europe, infamous deviant feared by millions, successfully submissive at three words utterance. What had he been reduced to?

"Okay, we've established the utter ridiculousness of the situation," Willow piped up. "Now let's go on to the explain-y thing."

Once again, eyes turned to Giles plaintively, and feeling under the pressure, he widened his eyes and held his arms out. "What?" he cried innocently.

"Well . . ." Anya cocked an eyebrow. "Isn't that your cue? This is the part where you suggest research and consequently impose a thoroughly boring evening on the rest of us."

Giles rubbed his head, fatigue weighing heavily upon him. "Oh. Yes, that's right. I forgot." Chuckling softly, his spirits were visibly raised at the prospect of a rigid perusing of text. "Haven't been in the game for awhile, my timing when it comes to my watcher duties has waned quite a bit----" He looked up and was rewarded with stoic, impatient glances, so he cleared his throat and pawed at his jacket for his glasses. "Right well, let's get started then," he commanded forcefully, and a universal groan followed.

Four hours later, they were in the same place they had started. They knew Willow's child was Spike's, they knew Spike was a vampire, and they knew Spike had been in another continent while the child had been conceived. All in all, they were inexorably and undeniably clueless.

"This sucks!" Anya sighed, collapsing onto the dining room table, stacked high with various texts. "I'm not finding out anything and failure gives me frown lines."

"Keep looking Anya, you've barely touched those texts over there," Giles replied quietly, not taking his eyes off of the book he was studying. 

Anya made a face and pushed the hated books away. "Is it just me, or is there no method to this madness at all? You're just looking up stuff randomly, trying to find the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack."

Giles grit his teeth. "We have to start _somewhere_ Anya, explanations don't arrive out of thin air."

"Then what air? I'm feeling no air. Fat, thin, bulimic, I don't think there's any air in the world that an explanation will come out of."

Xander heaved a sigh as well, gently putting down the book he was studying. "She's right, Giles, it's been forever, and we don't even have a hint as to what's going on with Willow."

Giles frowned impatiently. "Oh come on now! We used to pull all-nighters, us lot. We could research for hours upon hours back in the day! Don't tell me you're growing weary in your old age?"

Spike blinked and shook his head as he gazed at most of the assembled group. "You must have been the dullest and deadest bunch o' high schoolers ever known to man."

"Excuse me, but we're not the vivacious Marathon Man you are, Giles." Xander nodded over towards Dawn, whose brown hair splayed across many of the books in front of her as she napped soundly. 

"Oh look!" Willow giggled softly, peering down at the dozing Dawn. "She's got little page lines across her face!" 

"I'll take the littl' Bit upstairs to bed," Spike sprang up in his chair, happy for an excuse to relieve himself of the sodding research. "I guess she just can handle the fast-paced world of researching like you speed demons." Picking her up, he carried her softly up the stairs, while Buffy gazed at him affectionately. He was so gentle and good with Dawn, and similarly gentlemanly-like with her as well . . . except for when the circumstance called for something different of course. She adored her lover with all of her soul, how was she to believe that he was the father of another woman's child?

Turning her head back to the books abruptly, she proclaimed, "I want to find an explanation for this _now_."

"All in good time Buffy, I'm sure if we have enough persistence, we can come up with something soon---"

"Ooo! Ooo! I know!" Anya rose up from her chair excitedly, waving her hands. "I have an idea what caused this!" While everyone else looked on with raised eyebrows and expectation, she held out her hands and grinned proudly. "Magic!" she cried.

Giles slumped his shoulders and returned to his text. "Now out of the nothingness we know, Anya, that was one of the few things we _were_ aware of."

"I'm serious! It's something magical . . . _magicky_. Maybe Willow placed a spell of herself----"

"Hey! Did not! Recovering wiccan here? Been to rehab and back? I'm not dumb enough to put a spell on myself!"

"Of course not now . . . _then_. When you were all up on the majicks."

"Why would I take time out of my busy schedule of skinning murderers and attempting apocalypse to think a _baby_ belonged up in the mix?" She said it plainly, without any sign of bitterness, but the words still caused her, Buffy, Giles and Xander to wince. 

"I don't know. Who knows what could have happened? You were absorbing tons of magic, Willow. More magic than any mortal had ever consumed before. Maybe you . . . you tapped into something, something that caused this."

Giles' eyes widened. "Of course! Willow _had_ facilities to more magic than any person, even immortal, has ever encountered. I'm sure that fits in somehow."

"The question is, _how_?" countered Buffy, sighing. She eyed the crystal at the other end of the table with disdain. Glaring at it, she went over to pick it up and cup it in her hand for further scrutiny. Maybe it was a faulty crystal, maybe the sun just happened to have caught its light and made it glow like that, maybe Giles' hands were shaking when he----

"Hey!" she suddenly exclaimed. "It's glowing!" Looking down, the crystal was indeed quaking and glowing in her hands, almost with the same strength it had when it was directed at Spike.

Giles neared her in a rush and stared down as Buffy grasped the crystal. "That's amazing," he breathed. "Do you realize what this means?"

"That this little puppy is defunct? It just goes all glow-y whenever _anyone_ holds it, it doesn't matter who it is----"

"It means that you're part of the child's genetical make-up!"

"Huh?" Willow and Buffy chimed in unison. 

"Well the crystal indicated that Spike was biologically linked to the child, didn't it? Now it's indicating that _you_ are as well!"

Xander shook his head dazedly. "Color me any more confused and . . . well I'd still be really confused."

"Giles that's . . ." Buffy scoffed, gazing towards Willow and then back at Giles. "That's really gross," she murmured in low tones.

"Not to mention anatomically impossible," Willow nodded. 

"Please. It's evident that this child was not conceived in a conventional manner, why are you all assuming it has conventional parents?"

"_I_ have unconventional parents," Xander said, pointing towards himself. "Parents who exist on a liquid, fermented diet and think a brawl-fest constitutes as a 25-th anniversary dinner. That---" Now he was pointing back at Willow, "is not a set of unconventional parents. That is a mathematically-challenged nightmare." 

"Are you saying that I'm a parent of Willow's child too?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"I'm not saying anything! I'm just . . . pondering." Giles was gazing back down at his book and suddenly brightened when he came across a few lines. " Aha! _Now_, I'm saying something." Getting up hastily, he put the desk on the table. "_Locus de Ater et Albus_," he read aloud to the group, as if that was supposed to fill them with instant recognition.

"Ummm . . . remember the part where I went with the big 'huh'?" asked Buffy.

"It means 'The Land of Black and White'," Giles explained. "An alternate dimension."

"And this is big news . . . why?"

"I see now," Giles was murmuring to himself hazily, a gleam shining in his eye. "I-I think I understand what happened!"

"Giles!" Buffy glared at him meaningfully. "Explain-y thing?"

"Y-yes well . . . alright, do you all remember when I returned and supplied Willow with that special magic given to me by the coven in England?"

"Sure . . ."

"Well what that magic was . . . it was the very essence of magic in general, it contained everything of magic that was good and righteous and full of humanity. It contained the powers of everything magic is intended to work for. A sort of . . . 'white magic' you may call it."

"I remember you telling me that in the Magic Box," remarked Anya. "You purposely made Willow take that magic from you so she could---"

"Regain her humanity, exactly. However, what I hadn't counted on was the amount of black magic Willow had already absorbed. I had no idea it was so much. My actions, in effect, were futile, for I thought Willow had blocked out the humanity in the magic I had given here. But that's not to say it wasn't there.

Normally when someone is given that much white magic, it takes over him or her completely and nothing else is prevalent in them. However, when Willow received it, she didn't succumb to it in such a manner. Instead, she contained _both_ types of magic----black _and_ white. They were, at that point, interchangeable, mingling together, in a way, almost powerless without each other. They had become one and mixed together so much that they became indistinguishable. She was a vessel for both black and white, dark and light. And she tapped into any sort of energy that contained the similar elements."

"So what does that have to do with me?" Buffy asked, a little nervous now.

"Your relationship with Spike contained exactly that sort of energy, Buffy. A um . . . _physical_ bond," he said the word in a rushed, almost choking kind of way, "between a slayer and a vampire was unprecedented."

"Our Buffy, the girl who laughs in the face of precedent and stomps all over it . . . not once, but _twice_," Xander nodded with facetious pride.

"So you're saying----"

"You and Spike _are_ the white and black, Buffy. You're union with Spike was something almost cosmically and mystically extraordinary. In that way, you created the essence of a child that existed not in this dimension---"

"But in the Land of Black and White," Buffy finished for him softly, suddenly understanding.

"Yes. Of course in this dimension, it seems impossible and unparalleled for a vampire to give life, but for that matter, the _union_ between slayer and vampire is unparalleled as well."

Buffy put her hand to her head. "I told Spike we didn't knew what we were getting into."

"So . . . this means . . . okay. Spike and Buffy do their stuff, create a child that's existing and walking around some other dimension and . . . it gets thrown into my lap?"

"Willow, you tapped into this dimension when you possessed the majicks. A part of you was existing at that time in that dimension. And when you were, you were the vessel that picked up the energy of this child and---"

"Now it's my bundle of joy," Willow grimly replied. "Well that's not fair. Buffy and Spike get to do the fun parts and I'm stuck with the kid."

Buffy was already up and squealing. "Oh my god Willow, this is amazing!" she cried, grasping her best friend's hands. "It is my baby! You're having my baby!"

"_That's_ something you don't hear everyday," Anya remarked.

"That's right," Willow sighed, wrinkling her lower lip into a frown as she tried to overcome the bizarre nature of this circumstance. "I'm the blessed surrogate mother."

"This is so great!" Buffy now had her arms fully around Willow and was grappling her into a hug. After groans of pain and protest, Buffy hurriedly backed away.

"What the hell is going on here?" Spike thundered as he blumbered down the stairs and into the dining room. "What's all the girlish screams about?"

"Willow's having our baby!" Buffy screamed, jumping up and down maniacally like a cheerleader on crack. "Yours and mine! A-and Willow's, I guess. Ours!" Spike took one look at her and shook his head, heading to the kitchen for a blood pack and a shot of whiskey to calm his nerves.

"This place gets loonier everyday," he muttered as he walked away. "A century with Drusilla pales in comparison."

AN: Sorry for the mini hold-up, school is not conducive to literary inspiration at all. Also, I know I included some Latin in here, I translated it myself, and I don't take Latin so . . . if I have a mob of appalled Latin students on my case, I apologize, the truth is I don't know a lick of Latin to save my life. 


	5. The Beginning of the Endeavor

Chapter Five: The Beginning of the Endeavor

"Is it just me, or is this a vivid flashback from like . . . less than two weeks ago?" Xander grunted, lugging the gargantuan moving box through the unyieldingly small front door. "First we move Willow out. Then back in again. Wouldn't it saved a lot of wear and tear on all of our backs if she didn't keep habitat-hopping?"

"I know it puts a lot of unneeded stress on me with directing people where to put boxes and so on and so forth," remarked Anya, sitting indolently on the couch, flipping through a magazine while Buffy, Dawn, Xander and Spike struggled with the never-ending inundation of Willow's baggage. 

Xander wiped the sweat from his brow, making a face at the ex-demon. "Right Anya, you're the model of grace under pressure. A world of thank you for your eternally beneficial presence."

Anya looked up from her Cosmo and cocked an eyebrow. "I sense sarcasm in your voice intonation, Xander. Glibness doesn't sit well with me, it results in significantly less orgasms for you."

Xander widened his eyes defeatedly. "Yes'm," he replied weakly. "The Xan-Man is living glib-free." Leaning over to nearest male, which happened to be Spike, he whispered conspiratorially, "She always gets away with that! It's like her secret weapon, she's got me all under her thumb. I threw away my Heidi Klum poster----my _Heidi_ no less, because she threatened withdrawal of sex for a week. That's cutting it where it hurts."

Spike stared at Xander with a cursory mixture of disgust and indifference. "Funny . . . we must have skipped over the part of the conversation where I indicated that I _cared_." Turning back to Buffy, he sighed, flexing his weary arms. He did have superhuman strength, but the heavy weight of all the boxes was beginning to get to him. "Explain to me once more why Red is moving in again?" 

"Spike!" Buffy implored him with her eyes for politeness. "Willow's moving in because she's our friend and she's in no state to be alone right now!"

"But what about her folks? I thought she was living with them in the first place."

Buffy shrugged her shoulders, a sense of bewilderment overcoming her the way it always did when she thought about Willow's parents. 'Willow's parents' wasn't even the proper term, they did nothing to show this to be true. They had always been strangers to Buffy and Xander, strangers to even their own daughter. Willow was used to being ignored by her parents, but now she was in a position where she couldn't afford to be ignored. She needed family, and Buffy was more family to her than anyone in the world. "Mr. and Mrs. Rosenburg are . . . they're not very understanding of the whole situation."

"'Situation' referring to their gay Wiccan daughter being magically knocked up by her best friend's undead boyfriend?"

Buffy smiled and patted Spike lovingly. "Way to paraphrase, honey."

"Buffy, I'm taking your room, right?" Willow appeared from the kitchen with a pile of clothes in her arms. Buffy tore her adoring gaze from Spike and dropped her mouth with protest, stalking up to her best friend hurriedly.

"Willow what are you doing?" she screeched. "W-with the . . . lifting of things? You're overworking yourself!" She reached out and swept the clothes from Willow's arms, leaving Willow with her arms outstretched in confusion.

"Overworking myself? Buffy, it's cotton and polyester, not a 20 pound anvil." She swiped a few of the clothes back to show that she was still a woman of sturdy independence, but Buffy resolutely tugged on the clothes. 

"You shouldn't be doing _anything_ in your condition," Buffy persisted. Willow frowned at that, not liking the fact that she was now defined by her "condition". "You should be resting . . . Dawn!" Sharply turning to her sister, she commanded, "Go get Willow a cup of tea!" 'Tea' was fast becoming a standard task for Dawn when Willow was around, and Dawn was not pleased with the constant reminders of her new assignment. Huffing and goose-stepping, Dawn stomped to the kitchen with a scowl.

"Buffy, stop making a big fuss out of me," Willow pleaded, not wanting to be painted as a helpless invalid. "I can take care of myself!"

"But you're totally fuss-worthy, Wills," Buffy assured her, busying herself with clothes and boxes. Slowing down, she smiled at Willow radiantly. "You're the mother of my child! Ergo, you equals big ol' major fuss. So sit down on the couch while Dawn makes up your tea and I'll get you settled. I'm fixing you up the master bedroom."

Willow and Spike both straightened in opposition. "Buffy, no!" Willow objected. "I'm just one person and the master bedroom is so big!" Internally, her heart stung slightly with pain when she thought of the days when this didn't seem so true. These were days when another girl, smiling and soft in her glitter monkey pajamas, resided there as well. The room didn't seem small then, it seemed instead too big; for it was impossible to contain the immense amount of joy and love that this girl brought in only one room. Willow didn't needed to be reminded of these days. She didn't want to have to sleep in the same bed she and Tara had spent night after blissful night in, only to now reach over to the side and feel nothing but cold, unforgiving air. 

"Yeah, Buffy, maybe we should think this through," Spike said hesitantly, unwilling to let the largest room in the house go to someone else. He had spent a long enough time pining away for it, ever since he moved into casa Summers. Buffy was firm in her resolution to keep her room _her room_, as if moving into the more spacious, less troublesomely cramped area (mostly due to Buffy's inability to let adolescent relics go; she seemed convinced that somehow, her Ace of Base poster, her troll doll collection, and Dorothy Hamill memorabilia still remained culturally relevant) would desecrate the sanctity of her mother's former room. Spike said he understood and lived with it, but lately, he had been yearning even more for Joyce's old roomy master suite; specifically Joyce's old roomy queen-size bed. Buffy's confining full-sized bed wasn't cutting it and besides, Buffy had the nasty habit of being a late-night kicker. "Willow's too small a bitlet to full up that room all by her lonesome. I say that we should think in terms of room economy, feng shui and that sort. That place is made for two people, who knows what kind of bad energy we could be invoking if we don't respect the wishes of the room-----"

Buffy administered the evil eye to her beloved. "Any more talk, Spike, and you won't have a room to respect the wishes of. Got it?"

Spike hardened and curled his lip sulkily. Damned woman. He was becoming as whipped as Harris. "Got it," he replied, but glowered at Xander when he gave Spike a kindred-spirit-_see-what-I-mean_ kind of look. No way would he ever want sympathy from the whelp. 

Willow twitched uncomfortably, knowing full well that her presence was bringing trouble into paradise. "Well, umm . . . I guess I'll just go upstairs then and get settled . . ."

Buffy turned and brightened, grabbing Willow's hand and briskly leading her up the stairs. "Oh I almost forgot! I have a surprise for you! In the attic! It's for your pregnancy." Suddenly, she stopped on the stairs and turned around, beaming with maternal joy. "I mean . . . _our _pregnancy." Emitting a wild giggle, she tugged on Willow's hand and started galloping up the stairs like a schoolgirl. Willow listlessly trudged behind her, finding nothing funny about that at all. She didn't want to share a pregnancy; as far as she was concerned, Buffy could have the whole thing.

Up in the attic, Buffy was rummaging through old boxes, her blonde head emerging from them as she threw old parachute-like garments at Willow. "And then there's . . . well it's another peasant top." She held up the blue embroidered top with a frown. "I guess, my mom was big into those. But at least I'm glad I kept all of her maternity clothes, I knew they would come in handy one day." She paused and reflected on how she secretly hoped that _she_ would be the one to make use of them one day, and for a moment she gazed at her best friend with the seed of envy and resentment. But guilt soon overcame her, and she shook her head briefly, holding the shirt back up. "Anyway . . ." she chirped with forced cheeriness. "What do you think?"

Willow eyed the shirt uncertainly, as well as the pile of flower power clothes that surrounded her. "It's great Buffy, but . . . well I'm not even showing yet . . . and it's not 1968."

"But Willow! The whole bohemian style is really coming back! A-and you're all 'Earth Mother-y', someone like you could really pull it off!"

Willow conceded a small smile, but still maintained a somber expression. "The clothes are great Buffy, it's just . . . I don't know if I'm ready for all of this yet."

Buffy dropped the suede tunic she was holding and cocked her head, puzzled. "Ready for what, Wills?"

"_This_. Maternity clothes. I mean, it hasn't even hit me that I'm . . . maternal now. And I know you're excited, and I know that you want to delve into the whole mother thing but . . . I don't know Buffy, I just don't feel the same."

This was news to Buffy. She had been blind with ecstasy at the idea of having a child---well okay, her best friend having her child----that she had never considered that Willow felt different. She couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't find only the most extreme form of joy in this. "Willow, what's wrong?" she asked with real concern, covering one of Willow's hands with one of her own. 

Willow shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. She began speaking in her usual, roundabout way. "I-it's nothing, it's just . . . this is _your_ dream Buffy, not mine."

Buffy stared at Willow, immediately even more guilty. How could Buffy ever look at her best friend with envy in her eyes? Willow didn't even want this pregnancy, she was only carrying through this whole ordeal for Buffy's sake. "Oh Willow---" she began. 

"No, not Buffy it's okay. I understand how much you want this. I'm glad you want this. You should want this. You have Spike to share something like this with, and I'm glad I can give it to you. But . . . I-I don't. I don't have anyone to start a family or to share a child with. And this, now . . . it reminds me of that. Even if I wanted a baby for myself, there's no one there t-to . . ." her voice broke slightly as tears glazed over her shining eyes, and she fingered a heart-shaped pendant at her neck, a gift that Tara had given her long ago. Buffy softened when she saw Willow's tears and scooted over to catch her in a hug. 

Gripping her tightly, she blinked back her own tears as she whispered into Willow's neck, "You have us, Willow. You have us to share it with." Willow heard it and relaxed slightly, comforted somehow by the words. And though she was happy to have comforted her best friend, Buffy couldn't help but notice how slightly selfish she felt. With her stomach against Willow's she felt a pang of pain when she realized hers was empty and Willow's was not. Like Willow, she suddenly didn't want to share. She wanted to know the pleasure of feeling new weight inside her. She _did_ want it all to herself. 


	6. The Bud of Life and Love

Chapter 6: The Bud of Life and Love

"Ow Bloody Ow!"

Buffy turned to her blanketed boyfriend, as he lurched clumsily through the streets. "Honey, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong? What's _wrong_? How about the fact that I'm frying like a tater tot under this blanket? Couldn't you have found an appointment later in the day?"

Buffy shot Willow, who was walking steadily next to her, an impish grin. "Sorry honey, but the clinic closes before 5. Doctors don't tend to make a habit of catering to the undead's schedules."

"Well they bloody well should consider it. We're people too, after all."

"People who feed on blood, lack reflections and don't breath," Willow observed. 

"Hey! I don't question _your_ lifestyle, do I?" Spike raised a scarred eyebrow. 

Suddenly, a guy stumbled into Spike, grunting unfeelingly. Incensed, Spike shot daggers at him. "Watch where you're going, pissant."

The guy blinked and gazed at the swaddled Spike. "Uh . . . s-sorry," he murmured in a tone entirely unapologetic. Spike caught him regarding the blanket with a queer expression, so he sneered, wrapping the blanket around him tighter.

"What are _you_ looking at? Can't a fella take a stroll without garnering dirty stares?"

The young man looked utterly confused as the hard-faced Brit with obvious blanket-security issues glared at him. "Hey dude, I said I was sorry."

"Yeah well, did it ever occur to you that maybe I have a condition? Maybe I need this ruddy blanket to ward against skin cancer? You ever think a that?"

The man softened instantly. "Oh . . . man, s-sorry I didn't know . . ."

"Well there you go. So maybe you should bloody use your head before going about insulting critical cancer patients. Now get lost you wanker, before I rip you a new one."

The man turned awkwardly and practically flew away with speed, leaving Buffy, Willow and a self-satisfied Spike standing on the sidewalk.

"Cancer, Spike? That was a masterful show of real class." Buffy put her hands on her hips and gave her boyfriend a reprimanding frown. 

"Well the chuffer had to learn what real respect is. You see the evil-eye action he was giving me?"

Buffy cocked her head. "Poor Spikey, did the big bad man _look_ at you the wrong way? However shall you restore your manhood?"

Willow stared at the man's retreating figure. " Well I think it's safe to say that you scared him good, cancer or not."

Spike brightened under the blanket. "Really? You think so?" Maybe he was regaining that whole scourge-of-Europe persona yet. "I mean . . . _hell yeah_ I scared the blighter. Like I said, I've always been bad." Before he could straighten up and assert his manly masculinity, he suddenly yelped with a cry of pain. "Balls! The blanket has a bloody hole in it! Buffy, didn't you mend it like I told you to?"

Buffy shrugged unsympathetically. "Must have slipped my mind. But hey----" she began to giggle spontaneously. "At least now we can say you're truly a hunk a hunk o' burning man!" Flying into a fit of laughter, she realized her bad joke was lost on both Willow and Spike as they both stared at her stoically. 

Spike shook his head, disgusted. "That was possibly the worst thing I've ever heard. Your punnage is going down the tubes, pet. I'm nearly ashamed to call you my Slayer." 

"_Your_ Slayer? Excuse me, but I'm strictly a free-lance demon hunter. The Chosen One belongs to no one." She straightened with an air of independence.

He responded by curling his mouth into a puppy-like pout, his blue eyes twinkling precariously, melting Buffy's heart immediately. "And here I was, thinking I was your lord and master."

Buffy went over to her boyfriend, smiling softly. "I wouldn't have it any other way," she whispered before leaning into the blanket and indulging in a kiss that was hidden from all view. Soon, she was oblivious to all the curious passerbys as she and Spike stood for several minutes under the gray blanket with only the sound of smacking lips giving insight into what they were doing. 

"We're here," Willow interrupted, glad to bring a momentary lull to the couple-y banter. Relieved, she opened the door to enter the Sunnydale Center for Women and Children's Heath, leaving the still-engaged couple to trail behind. Lately, she felt increasingly uncomfortable around Spike and Buffy. They had a tendency to bounce back and forth from snippety to----well, nauseatingly cute. She was getting tired of enduring their little love-fests. No one ever felt more like a third wheel then when they were in Buffy and Spike's simperingly love-infested presence. 

In the waiting room, Willow seated herself into a hard vinyl chair while Buffy got the much softer seat of Spike's lap. Trying to drown out the noise of Spike and Buffy whispering and giggling at each other like puckish schoolchildren, Willow grabbed the nearest magazine and pretended to absorb herself into it. _Sports Illustrated_ could seem almost interesting when one was trying to avoid the sickly sight of massive cuddling. 

Finally, a nurse entered the waiting room and called out, "Willow Rosenburg", prompting Spike and Buffy to reluctantly break apart and follow Willow back into the examination room. The nurse directed Willow to seat herself on the table while Buffy sat by her, grasping her hand. She suddenly felt nervous.

"Buffy, I'm nervous," Willow whimpered, holding one hand around Buffy's, the other around her stomach.

Puzzled, Buffy searched her friend's eyes with concern. "Nervous? What, Willow, why?"

Willow gazed at her best friend to tell her the truth, but the hopeful light that shined in Buffy's face forced her to hesitate. How was she supposed to tell her that she was nervous because _this----_being in a doctor's office, waiting for a sonogram----_this_ made it real. And she didn't want it to be real. She didn't what admission that this child really existed. After all, what was this child, other than a testament to the hideous mistakes Willow had made last year? It was like getting drunkenly knocked up by some nameless frat guy, but a million times worse. This child was the consequence of all the actions and ugliness Willow struggled to forget. She didn't need the constant reminder. It might have been conceived of Spike and Buffy's love, but it was equally conceived out of Willow's hate and vengeance. How was she supposed to tell Buffy that?

"I'm not big on sonograms," Willow instead lied. "I have an irrational fear of that thingy they use. With the gel and the . . . ugh, I'm always afraid it'll feeling like a branding iron."

Buffy laughed. "Come on Willow, you know better than that. This is a painless procedure, just calm down and relax. Things are gonna be okay."

Willow nodded, reclining further onto the table with a sigh. Her relaxing days were over when she made the choice to put her hand into a magic text and suck up all the dregs of the blackest energy it contained. A passing assurance that "things would be okay" was feebly insignificant compared to the world of "not okay" that Willow felt.

Dr. Karen Mercer finally entered the room, gazing down at a folder seriously. "Well Willow, it's nice to see you again," she murmured, scratching away at a piece of paper very absently-doctor like. 

"Hey Dr. Mercer," Willow replied weakly, still grasping her stomach.

"I hope you're feeling fine today and-----oh." Looking up, she was startled to see a pair of blondes, one female holding tightly onto Willow, the male shuffling darkly in the corner. "Umm . . . hello . . ." The 'hello' was said in a tone that obviously pressed for introductions. "I'm guessing you're both with Willow."

"That's right," the blonde girl rushed to say, as if she was being tested on every answer she uttered. "We're with Willow."

Dr. Mercer raised her glasses and surveyed Spike and Buffy carefully. "Umm, and you are?"

Spike held the tattered blanket at his feet and for a moment looked blank. "I'm uh . . . the father of the child."

The glasses fell back onto the bridge of Dr. Mercer's nose. "The father?" She looked from Willow to Spike in surprise. Somehow she hadn't imagined that Willow Rosenburg, one who was currently donning a "You're So A-pealing" monkey shirt, would have found a suitor in this sharp and angular British man clad entirely in black. He was the very blonde incarnation of Sid Vicious and there was a glint of something almost yellow in his blue eyes that unsettled Dr. Mercer. "Well . . ." Dr. Mercer's voice trailed off in vague perplexity. "It's nice to meet you . . . " The upward hilt of pitch at the end of the sentence indicated that she wished for a name.

"Spike," supplied Spike. 

This got better and better. "_Spike_. Uh . . . Spike . . .?" She waited for the surname.

He shook his head. "Nuffin' else. Just Spike. Like . . . just Cher. Without all the campy connotations."

"Well . . . Mr. Spike. Umm, I'm glad to see you here. Willow had expressed some concern about being alone in this situation, I'm happy to see that you're giving support as her partner."

Spike widened his eyes. "Oh . . . I'm not her partner, we aren't . . . y'know _together_. We're just friends . . . sort of." He turned to Willow on the examining table. "You'd call us friends, wouldn't you Red?"

Willow shrugged. "I'd call us friends-worthy. Barring the one time you held me hostage and tried to kill me, that is."

Dr. Mercer pushed the glasses back up her nose in utter bewilderment. But a lot of the couples that waltzed into here were rather unconventional (ranging from college students who barely knew each others' names to couples who still disputed the biological linkage of the child in wild brawls right in the middle of the clinic), so she let it slide. Turning to Buffy, she asked, "And you are?"

"Buffy. Summers. Buffy Summers, that's me." The girl looked positively euphoric, so much so that she couldn't form a sentence properly. "I'm Spike's girlfriend."

Dr. Mercer was beginning to feel the need for a chair. "Girlfriend?" The glasses slid back down the nose. "I . . . I don't mean to pry, but . . . you're all right with this?" 

Buffy brightened as if she had stolen Willow's requisite maternal glow. "All right? More like _ecstatic_!"

Finding a chair and sinking into heavily, Dr. Mercer sat astounded. "Ecstatic?" she whispered dumbfoundly.

"Sure! I mean, Willow is my best friend! Why wouldn't I be happy?"

Dr. Mercer could think of plenty of reasons why this girl (who it seemed, was either insane or perennially dizty) shouldn't be happy, but she held her tongue. "I . . . certainly can't think of a reason," she lied. She gave the incestuous three another eyebrow-raised look, then went off to start the procedure.

"Oh my god," Buffy breathed, peering at the cloudy screen of black and white streaks with consuming awe. "I-it's beautiful!" Her throat was choked with sudden tears as she felt a stirring of tenderness beat painfully within her breast. The three-inch figure on the screen, a clump of white against black, looked like a masterpiece to Buffy, a Da Vinci etching of a cherubic infant. She bit her lip, unable to contain the wave of affection she felt for the kidney bean shaped image. 

"It is?" Willow asked, trying to see the screen from the uncomfortable position on the table. At first she thought she wouldn't want to see it, but now the temptation was overwhelming. 

"Yeah, I can't see it neither," murmured Spike, furrowing his brow with intense concentration as if he was trying to figure out a Magic Eye picture.

"It's right here," Dr. Mercer instructed, pointing one figure at the clump. Smiling, she added, "And it's looking completely healthy for an eleven-week old."

Buffy sighed blissfully, then looked up at Dr. Mercer. "Do you think we can determine the sex this early?"

Dr. Mercer shifted thoughtfully. "Generally it's a little too early to tell, but we do have advanced technology nowadays. The sex of the child is clearly developed in this stage of pregnancy. It would just be a matter of whether you wanted to know or not---"

"We want to know!" Buffy exploded, bouncing up and down in her chair. "We definitely want to know, don't we honey?" She turned to Spike who was still trying to decipher the sonogram puzzle.

Dr. Mercer cleared her throat. "I think that's more of a decision that Willow and Spike have to make."

That sent Buffy's mood plummeting. "Willow and Spike"? It was a three-way parentage, not two. She made them sound like an actual pair, a typical couple, anxiously awaiting parenthood together. She felt like yelling at Dr. Mercer, "It's my damn child too!" but she immediately saw how that would make the kind of sense that didn't. So she grit her teeth and sat back in her chair with a scowling pout.

"Bloody hell, I see it!" Spike's features went alight with a smile as he finally caught sight of the miracle child. It was wiggling slightly in the muddy picture, but there it was, clear as day. Cuddled, breathing, alive. It was the most amazing sight Spike had ever seen. "I-It's . . . it's . . ." he didn't want to say beautiful, he wasn't as instantly intoxicated with the child as Buffy had been. It didn't much look like anything really, it was more alien-like in appearance with its slight eyes and tiny, minuscule limbs. The sight was more . . . _surreal_. Yes, that's what it was. Surreal because it was the very bud of life, something that had a plethora of feelings, thoughts and experiences awaiting him or her in the years to come. And he had helped create it. He helped create a person that would walk around and inhale the air and smile in the sunlight and feel happy or sad. _Spike_ helped create this, a person that had been indoctrinated with the idea that nothing good or real would ever come from him. It was more than he could handle. So he just sat there, staring at the screen with a funny, quiet grin on his face. 

"I still can't see it!" Willow protested. "Why can't I see it?!"

Dr. Mercer patted Willow soothingly. "It's all right, it's common for mothers to be antsy their first sonogram. Here it is." Leading Willow's finger to the screen, she once again pointed to the little blob. And so Willow finally caught sight of Spike and Buffy's child. 

And suddenly, all the resentment, all the anger, all the fear that the thought of this child had incurred was gone. Vanished. Dissipated immediately. In its place was a flood of love and longing and amazement. It was so little, and it was breathing and sighing and existing within her. A mini-human. A child. It was solely dependent on the life force Willow was offering it. It _needed_ her. She felt _needed_. She forgot what how pleasantly warm and full that emotion felt. 

Her body and mind, up to this moment, had been long empty of any infatuating passion. The person who used to fill that place within her had been destroyed, and with her, the capacity to ever have that place filled up again seemed depleted. But it was restored, overwhelmingly so, when Willow gazed upon the sonogram screen. But she hadn't realized it just then. There was still too much hurt and broken pieces to fix before Willow could admit to ever feeling love on that sacred level again. So like Spike, she remained quiet. 

"Look, you can see the child's defined features right . . . there. You see them? The nose, the mouth . . . look, there are the fingers. . . ." Dr. Mercer directed Willow and Spike about the screen, and the two huddled together around it to catch a better view. Buffy had to back away slightly as they had to find room to study the screen. 

"Oh goddess, those are the fingers," Willow whispered, breaking into a smile.

"Cor, I've never seen anything so tiny," Spike mumbled with the same wondering air. He leaned over Willow's shoulder to grin at the screen even more widely. Buffy felt pricked and suddenly goaded at the sight of such intimacy and jealousy raged within her. But she caught herself once more and tried softening into sympathy. She knew it wasn't Willow's fault that this was happening---it was no one's fault. She should love her best friend like she always did, especially now that she was carrying her child. So how come she felt an immense amount of un-love for her at the moment? The bud of life had begun to grow and in consequence, the seed of jealousy had been planted. 


	7. Blessings

Chapter 7: Blessings

"Augggh!"

The scream incited a wave of panic in Buffy immediately. She sprang upright from her comfortable groove in the sofa where she spent most of the quiet afternoon reading and tensed at the sound of her best friend's cry, poised for a fight. She instinctively grabbed a nearby stake. "Willow?!" She stormed the stairs and down the hall, bursting into the master bedroom expecting to see a tentacled, three-headed monster or a serpent-headed Medusa of darkness overtaking her helpless friend. You just never knew what to expect on a Saturday on the Hellmouth. 

The one thing she didn't expect to see was Willow in front of the full-length mirror with her shirt propped up over her belly, wringing her hands in dismay. "My stomach!" she screamed. 

Buffy gazed down, still jarred with fleeting worry, at Willow's slightly bulging stomach. " . . . Looks fine to me," Buffy replied confusedly. Suddenly straightening with delayed worry, Buffy's eyes went wide with fear. "Is the baby alright? Are you hurting?"

"Am I hurting?! Of course I'm hurting!" I can't fit into my jeans anymore! My favorite jeans with the kitty diamond patch on them, I just bust out of them! God, I'm hideous!"

Buffy relaxed, contrasting with Willow's frantically anxious manner. "Oh. Willow, is that all? You look great."

"Easy for you to say," Willow screeched. "You're Miss Size-Zero Princess, you're not sporting the latest in pot-belly fashions like I am!"

Buffy chuckled at her best friend's spontaneous vanity. "Willow, it doesn't matter, you're beautiful all the same." It was true. To tell the truth, she had never seen Willow so beautiful, though obviously the fact that she was carrying her child left her slightly biased. The pregnancy added curves and roundness to usually stick-straight thin Willow and made her softer somehow. It made Willow finally stop looking like a sprite, more like a woman. 

"Again speaking from that rail-thin standpoint. With your Slayer workout routine, you'd never have to worry about turning into a Pudgy Peggy like me. Oh goddess! I can barely see my toes!"

"That's because you're wearing socks," Buffy deadpanned with a smile. 

Willow sighed. "I can't handle this Buffy. This is starting to be real. I'm starting to get into moods. I make trips to the bathroom as often as a person uses a word with the letter "e" in it. And worst of all, I look like a whale."

"Willow, if you looked like a whale, it would be an anorexic Free Willy at the most." She started to laugh, but judging by Willow's stony expression, this joke didn't do much to ease her worry. Sighing, she sat down on the bed, with Willow settling next to her. "Look, I know this is hard for you. I'd say it's hard for all of us, but I'd be lying, because I have no idea how you're feeling right now." Buffy resisted listening to the voice in her head that reminded her that she wanted more than anything to have an idea of how Willow was feeling. "The only thing I can tell you is to stay strong. I know it might be selfish, imposing my child on you and everything."

Willow straightened. She didn't know why, but the words "my child" bothered her. At first, she knew that she'd say those words with relief, comforting in the implication that she had nothing to do with this child and that her womb was a casual kind of boarding house for the miracle child. But now . . . it's not like she had fully accepted the idea of this child. She had yet to embrace the baby growing inside her without apprehension and worry. But she was slowly getting used to it. And getting used to it meant becoming more aware of the fact that it wasn't simply Buffy and Spike's child. This child would have never existed if it wasn't for Willow using the majicks. She was the one who had inadvertently grasped the child's essence from some faraway, alternate universe and brought it into being. And even if it was just a byproduct of some horrible and chaotic and terrible mess that Willow had caused, it still meant that it was as much of Willow's child as it was Buffy's . . . Wasn't it?

"Oh . . . it's . . . it's okay," Willow replied, donning breeziness. "Kind of imposed it on myself when I decided to go on Wiccapolooza and stick my nose in dimensions it didn't belong."

Buffy smiled sincerely. "I can't tell you how proud I am of you."

Willow cocked her eyebrows. "Buffy, you are aware that we were just _discussing_ my magic-bingeing, Armageddon-aspiring escapades just a sentence before, aren't you? I don't think it's much cause for pride."

"Yeah, but you rebounded from that. All by yourself. You fought through all the struggles and setbacks and here you are, stronger than ever. And _this_ . . . this gets inconveniently dumped on you and you just take it in stride. I . . . I don't even know if _I_ could do it."

Willow placed a warm hand over Buffy's. "I know you could."

Buffy nodded, but wondered if she's ever get the chance to find out. Suddenly, Spike sleepily stumbled into the room, wiping the daylong nap out of his eyes. "What the bollocks is going on?" he yawned. "I wake up to the sound of hysterical shrieking, can't a gent catch a few Zs now and then in this house?"

Buffy turned away from Willow to her irate boyfriend. "Sorry honey, Willow had some standard pregnancy jitters. No big."

Spike nodded and collapsed into the queen-sized bed heavily. "Right. Freaked out when you realized your Levis are a little snugger than usual?" he murmured with his head buried in the pillows.

Willow frowned maddeningly, alarmed that he had guessed so easily. "Is it so obvious?! I knew it! I'm just one walking tub of lard!"

Buffy smacked one of Spike's black-clad legs. "Thanks a lot, Oh-Tactful-One. I had just repaired the damage and you lurch in just to smash it into insecure pieces all over again."

"Don't mention it." Spike's voice came muffled from the pillows. 

"I think I'll weigh myself again," Willow whimpered. "See if I've gained an weight in the last two minutes." Getting up, she scrambled to the bathroom. 

Buffy frowned at the drowsy vampire's form. "You know, you could try and be more understanding with Willow. This is hard for her."

Spike rolled and sat up, propping himself on his elbows. "This is hard for _me._ Dragging myself to daylight doctor's appointments, compromising my space for a hormonal, yelping witchlet."

"A hormonal, yelping witchlet that's carrying your child," Buffy reminded. 

Spike groaned and covered his face with a pillow. "I know. It's a miracle. It's a godsend. An almighty bloody blessing. But does that mean I'm gonna have to go sleep-deprived for the next nine months?"

Incensed, Buffy hit him with a pillow, but with her Slayer strength, it was considerably more injuring than a playful pillow fight. "God Spike, how selfish can you get? This is our _child_ we're talking about." How could he be so complacent about this? How could he only care about garnering more hours of sleep for his already lazy-ass itinerary of 18 hours a day? This was the man she dreamed about having a child with and he didn't even care now that child existed. 

"Yeah, yeah it's our child. But it doesn't feel like it does it? It's Willow's, more like. She's the one who gets the morning bouts of nausea, she's the one who keeps the little critter alive and kickin'. She's the one who wakes up with it and goes to bed with it. I mean, if it was _you_, I guess it would come naturally. It would feel more like mine I suppose. I would be able to help you and be with you when you got sick. I'd be able hold you and the baby in the arms when we go to bed at night. That connection with you----that would make the whole idea of this kid even more real. I would be able to understand it like I understand you. But it being Willow's . . . I don't know, it's just beyond me."

Buffy sat still at stared at Spike. One thing that constantly annoyed her about her boyfriend was his great capacity for cutting straight to the issue. He was right, she knew that the child Willow was carrying was her baby . . . but she didn't _feel_ it. Even the love she felt for it was hazy. It was like some warm, cloudy emotion for something she couldn't recognize or touch. This child was merely an abstraction to the three of them and she wondered when it would ever stop feeling that way. Suddenly down, she crawled over and spooned herself into Spike was he lay sprawled on the bed. He began stroking her bare arm as she rested her head on his chest and stared wistfully at the ceiling. 

"Spike, if you could have a child with me, would you?" she asked, sounding as lost as a child. Now why did she ask that? She knew full well that he would say. 

Spike leaned up over her and looked at her seriously as she knew he would. "Buffy, of course you know I would. I would give anything to. It would make me the happiest man on earth to have a child with you. Well, even happier at least."

She smiled wanly. She knew that would be his answer. And yet, she needed to hear it. Maybe, just maybe, if she knew that he wanted this as much as she did, they could just _wish_ it into existence. But it was futile. The way wishing that she wasn't the slayer, that she was just a normal girl and that Spike was a normal boyfriend with no allergic affliction to sunlight was futile. After all these years, she still longed for a normal life as much as she did as flighty teenager who merely wanted to curl up with a _Seventeen_ on a Friday night. Why couldn't she ever accept the blessings she had been given? It had taken her forever to see Spike as a blessing, what if it would take as long to accept this child? 

"This child will make you happy, Spike. This will make us both happy." She whispered, burying her face into the crook of his neck as if she was seeking secret assurance there.

"Mmmm," Spike responded, already drifting back to sleep. 

Just then, Willow meandered back into the room, hearing Buffy's affirmation. She suddenly felt impossibly lonely at the sight of the lovers comfortably holding onto each other in a way she hadn't done for a long time. Almost instinctively, her hand went to her stomach, pressing hard against the bulge and wishing for a blessing of her own. 

****

AN's: Just to clarify and in response to one reviewer's worries, this fic will _not_ turn into a Willow/Spike ship. This is strictly a Buffy/Spike affair, and most respectfully, bollocks to anyone who can't stand that ship. The world is a better place because of it ;). Also, sorry for the hold-up in updating, I've also updated my other fic "Fortunate Son" if anyone wants to check that one out. Thanks to those who have reviewed, you guys are frankly what make the world so nice, lol. Oh and also, I recommend checking out my first original work here called "The Swiss Army Romance" for anyone who wants to venture out of the Buffy world of fiction. It's not too bad, hope you'll check it out. 


	8. Nightly Annoyances, Daily Surprises

****

AN: This is amazing. I've rolled out two chapters for two fics, it's been the most productive weekend ever. I guess I'm on a roll. Not doing homework helps. Anyway, whatever, enjoy!

Chapter 8: Nightly Annoyances, Daily Surprises

The dead of night and the only sounds floating about the silent Summers house were the plaintive song of crickets and the unseemly snoring of the sleeping dead. Buffy was a light sleeper, but she didn't mind the accordion-like groans emitted from her bedmate. She just continued drifting through dreamy unconsciousness with Spike's arms draped over her protectively. She felt completely at peace this way, she never had nightmares while cuddled into his hold. Stirring in her sleep, she sighed in satisfaction as she brushed a leg against Spike's splayed one. Nothing could disturb her in this nighttime tranquility. 

"Buffy!" 

A whisper pierced the easy restfulness and Buffy's eyes flashed open. "Willow?" Her eyes were adjusting to the cloak of black, but she could make out Willow's nervous and fidgeting form standing beside the bed. 

"Buffy, I'm hungry."

Buffy squinted over at the bedside clock. She groaned when she saw that it was only 3:00. "Willow, it's three in the morning," she sighed, sitting up halfway in bed. 

"I know . . . but I can't go to sleep with how hungry I'm feeling."

Buffy dragged her tired self up fully. "Well we have plenty of food downstairs," she yawned, rubbing her eyes. 

"I know. But I can't eat any of it."

"Willow . . . it's digest-able, all of it. Just avoid the V-8. I forget which bottles I switched with Spike's blood."

"That's not what I mean. The baby . . . it has a particular craving."

"A particular craving?"

"Sushi." 

Buffy would have laughed if she weren't so groggy. "Oh. I guess this is one of those standard 'middle-of-the-night-I-gotta-have-this-specific-food-or-else-carnage-for-all' pregnancy things."

"Pretty much."

"Oh well, I guess Spike will just have to go downtown and get some." Buffy roused him roughly and he snorted awake. Flying up in bed, Spike's eyes fluttered open frantically. 

"Wha, another apocalypse? I'm ready, hand me the weapons, what are we up against now? Hell-dogs? Zombies? Big ugly oversize tarantulas, what?" His head waved blearily, still showing signs of confused sleepiness. 

"Not at the mo, dear. Willow's just hungry."

Spike sighed and sank back down into bed. "Oh. Spectacular."

Buffy smacked his bare chest. "That's your cue to be the nice souled beastie you are and mosey down to town to get what she wants."

Spike moaned dramatically. "Do I _hafta_?" he protested petulantly. 

Buffy tried dragging him up from the sheets. "Spike, _come_ _on_. What kind of vampire are you? You shame your nocturnal brethren."

"My nocturnal brethren don't have to worry about silly gits with hunger pangs in the middle of the night."

"_Spike_ . . ."

Uh-oh. The "_Spike_" voice. The voice that was usually accompanied by the evil eye, but it was thankfully too dark to see Buffy administering it. The voice that usually meant a night spent on the couch downstairs if he wasn't careful. So Spike sighed and swung his legs over the side of the bed and began to slip on a pair of jeans. 

"_Alright_ . . ." he sighed reluctantly. "Now what do want me to run and get from the store?"

"Sushi," Willow said firmly. 

Spike whipped up his head. "_Sushi_? You're sending me out on a _sushi_ run? There ain't a friggin' sushi place in the whole of Southern California that's open this late."

"Yoshi Yamato's that's downtown is. It's open 24 hours."

Spike continued whining. "I'm not going to trudge downtown when there's a Ralphs up the street. Can't you just make do with a raw salmon fillet?" 

"No, I need sushi! And not any old sushi, I need _uni_."

"Una-what?"

"Uni. It's sea urchin."

"This is bloody ridiculous," Spike exploded. "I'm getting a pack of frozen fish sticks, you'll just have to gnaw on those for awhile!"

"Spike!" 

Willow began to whimper, sniffling as her face fell. "Y-you don't understand, I n-need sushi! I _need_ it! I was looking forward to eating it so much!" She began to break down into a teary mess. "The baby won't let me sleep until I have it!"

"Now look what you did!" reprimanded Buffy. "You made her cry! Fix it! Get her 'uno' crap! I mean it!"

"Alright, goddammit, I will!" Spike moaned, shrugging on a shirt. Willow perked up and sneaked a smile, ceasing the sniffling. "Yoshi Yamato, bloody soddin' unagi."

"Uni."

"Bloody, soddin' uni."

"Oh and Spike?" Willow brightened and held her hands hopefully when Spike tiredly turned around. 

"Yeah?"

"Can you get me extra of the spicy green horseradish stuff? Wasabi?"

Spike trudged out of the bedroom, wondering if she would notice if he sneaked some arsenic to her as well. 

"Ok, this is officially a trip for any food that Willow might crave," Buffy announced the next morning as she wheeled the shopping cart down the brightly lit grocery aisles. She sneaked a half-smile, half-grimace. "Wouldn't want a repeat of last night." Willow smiled sheepishly while Spike yawned a little over-dramatically. 

"And how. Most respectfully Red, the next time you wake me up shall result in death."

"I can't help it, it's the hormones. I get crazy cravings all the time. The other day, I had the biggest urge to eat as many pickled eggs as I could find."

Buffy stuck her tongue out. "Ugh. I guess we'll need to stock up on those then."

"Hey Buffy, can we get these?" Spike held up a box of ridiculously colored snack foods. Buffy was a staunch advocate of _trying_ to eat healthy, and that meant clearing the cupboards of any food rainbow-colored. 

"You know we can't, Spike. It's totally fattening."

Spike looked down at his lean physique. "Umm . . . dead here. Not really concerned about packing on the pounds."

"Just because you're the living dead doesn't give you an excuse to let yourself go."

Spike sneered. "You never let us lot eat anything. And I may note, I don't consider that tasteless cardboard casserole crap you make _anything_."

Buffy put her hands to her hips. "You don't have to eat it, you know. You exist full well on the blood that, guess what? _I _provide. I swear, Sid the Butcher has stopped asking and just makes with the funny looks now."

"Well if I didn't eat it, you'd make a bloody ruckus like you're doing now. It's always 'Spike, you never appreciate my cookin', oh Spike just try it, Spike for the love of God try it or I'll stake you'," he cooed in a high, shrill falsetto that was supposed to mimic Buffy's harpy tendencies. 

"Staking you sounds pretty appealing right now," Buffy said, eyes narrowing.

Spike rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you've got me all good and shakin' Slayer. Four years really gives testament to the validity of your threats."

Willow was rolling her own eyes at the two. Fighting once more, surprise, surprise. And, to make it even more predictable, they would soon make up in a disgusting, profuse Public Display of Affection. It's what they always did. The routine was pretty tired. As the two continued sniping at each other, Willow, almost invisible to them, slipped off in search of the Tofurky Jerky she had been wanting for days.

Stepping into the organic food aisle, Willow browsed the racks for her jerky. Her eyes scanned all the similar-looking packages so intently that she didn't notice the young woman who bumped into her on the left. 

"Oh, I'm sorry---" Willow started, looking up. But when she did, her eyes went wide and she was struck with silence.

Standing in front of her was a young woman about her age with short, cropped blonde hair with chunky black and pink streaks running through it. She was clad in a fish-net black mesh shirt over a tighter burgundy tank top with a glittering black cross embroidered on it. Over clunky black Doc Martens, she wore leather pants, held up by a huge studded belt. Various ropes of jewels and heavy crosses and beads circled her neck and wrists. She was so very different. Yet the face was exactly the same. The same as Tara McClay's.


	9. The Face of an Angel

****

AN: This will probably never happen again, but I have updated this fic with three chapters in the last three days . . . with that, my inspiration level has probably plummeted due to overuse. So enjoy these quick updates while you can, I'll probably hit a dry spell after this. Oh and review! Because that'll decrease the possibilities of dry spells considerably :)

Chapter 9: The Face of an Angel

"Oh my god . . ." Willow breathed in amazement. "You're . . . you're _alive_ . . ."

The girl gave Willow a questioning look of good-humored bewilderment. "What gave it away?" 

"Tara . . . oh god baby, you're alive . . . I c-can't believe it." Willow shook her head as ebullient tears started forming in her eyes. She stepped towards her, ready to throw her arms around the blonde, but frowned when the girl stepped back cautiously. Inspecting her face, she realized that the girl had not the slightest clue as to who she was. She felt the bulge of joy that formed in her chest the first moment she saw this girl succumb to pangs of anxiety, the kind one gets after realizing that a mirage is just that---a mirage. She tried blinking in vain to see if the girl merely and vaguely resembled Tara in a way that unconsciously invoked a mistaken response, but to no avail. She was the spitting image of her late lover. So she murmured softly, "Tara . . .d-don't you know m-me?"

The girl shook her head gently. "I'm sorry but . . . my name's not Tara. I think you're mistaking me for someone else."

Willow wondered if she was unconsciously on the majicks again. Maybe she was merely projecting an image that she wanted to see. She was playing a trick on herself. She tilted her head and scrutinized the girl to see if the likeness would ever dissipate. The girl began to get uncomfortable, but concerned. "Hey . . . are you okay?"

"Huh?" Willow shook her head as if emerging from a daze. "Yeah. I'm . . ." She couldn't finish the sentence, because obviously, she was not ok. She was going insane, hallucinating. 

"I'm almost sorry I'm not the person you want me to be," the girl said with a smile. 

Willow looked as if she couldn't comprehend anything at the moment. "What?"

"I mean, if it would take the deathly glum look off your face." The girl paused and reached her hand out in a gentle offer. "I'm Amber. Amber Stone." She shrugged sheepishly. "I know, I know, it sounds like a _total_ stripper's name, but I swear, my parents must have had a penchant for making me miserable, even before birth."

Willow gazed down at the hand dumbfoundly. " . . . Willow," she murmured, taking it and shaking it in a haze. "Willow Rosenburg."

"Willow Rosenburg," Amber echoed, trying it out on her tongue. "Now _that's_ a nice name. Unique, a sort of homage to the bohemian era of picking names based on seasons and foliage. I like it."

Now she knew that this definitely wasn't her girl. This girl was articulate, talkative and confident, traits that Tara didn't display---at least not instantly. And yet there was something still powerfully familiar about her and it wasn't just the face. Willow just continued staring while Amber tried to draw out conversation. Gazing down at Willow's stomach she grinned and cooed, "Oh wow, you're having a kid!"

"What? Oh . . . yeah." Willow held her hands around her swollen stomach awkwardly. 

"How many months along are you?"

"Oh . . . about f-five." She couldn't believe she was having a normal conversation with the possible reincarnation of the love of her life. 

"Wow. Sometimes I think I'd love to have a baby. But usually in my more 'I'm-so-scared-of-being-desperately-alone' moods. That and when I watch those adorable diaper ads on TV."

Willow laughed quietly, and Amber took it was cue to converse a little further. Smiling softly, she added, "The father here shopping with you? If you don't mind me asking."

Willow straightened and thought this through. What was she supposed to say? It's funny how totally innocent questions could provide so much panic in her. But then again, who really wanted to hear the truth? She knew that if she told the truth about the situation to anyone who asked, no one would think her sane enough to talk to again. But more than that, she somehow didn't want to tell this girl that the father was lurking around the store somewhere. She didn't want to give her the wrong idea. But then _again_, everyone was all up on the wrong ideas lately. Like the way she was, right this minute. 

"Oh umm . . . no, the father went kind of . . . AWOL," she lied. "He's kind of a . . . deadbeat." That didn't sound so much like a lie. 

"Oh, that sucks," Amber nodded sympathetically. "Just goes to show you how all sons of Adam are basically tools when you come right down to it. Not so fond of them myself."

Willow's eyes widened. Amber noted Willow's reaction and tried to recover quickly. "I guess I have to watch what I say sometimes. I always come across as a man-hating lesbian. And I'm not. I mean, it's not that I hate men as much as I _really like_ women." She sighed and chuckled. "Look, and there my mouth goes again."

This was unbelievable. Even for the Hellmouth. How could Willow take it as anything other than a sign? Amber looked nervous, as if she was worried that she offended Willow, who was back to staring at her again.

Finally, Willow managed to utter the disconnected words, "Y-you . . . you . . . you're like . . . my ex-girlfriend . . ."

Amber relaxed and brightened. "Well I guess there was no need to worry then, you know the deal." Suddenly she tilted her head. "Is . . . that who I reminded you of? Your ex-girlfriend?"

'Reminded' was not strong enough a word. "You kind of have the same facial structure, it can confuse a girl," Willow admitted lamely. 

Amber laughed. "I'm sure. But hey . . . wow, that makes your little situation a pickle doesn't it? I mean . . . pregnant lesbian, you don't see that everyday. And you say the father left? And I guess your girlfriend just did too, judging from how much you wanted to think I was her."

Willow shrugged, trying to cloak the feeling of slight pain that lingered through her. "Yeah, I get the tough breaks sometimes."

"I think that's amazing. I . . . I don't know if I'd be able to handle it. You've got to be an incredibly strong person to deal with that."

The curves of Willow's mouth lifted upwards slightly. "I've got great friends helping me handle."

"I bet. They must be amazing since you're so well-adjusted."

Just then, Willow heard a bottle smash to the floor, accompanied by loud yelping from a female voice and a low British male one. "Clean-up on aisle eight," a deadened, machine-like voice called through the store. 

Willow rolled her eyes. "I think those are my amazing friends now."

Amber looked disappointed. "Oh . . . do you have to go now?"

Willow gazed back at Amber and hesitancy filled her completely. She had to stay and find out more about this girl. She had to figure out where she had come from and how she had wandered into Willow's life and what she meant. There was something magical---not _majickal_, but magical---in this and Willow needed to find out what it was. A sudden kick from the baby nestled in the womb seemed to signify a connection to this girl and Willow stroked her belly in wonder. "I . . I . . ."

"Red, we've got the chuffin' pickled eggs, now let's get the bloody hell out of here!" Spike called loudly across the aisles, much to Willow's embarrassment.

Amber giggled. "That you? Red?"

Willow grimaced. "Most unfortunately."

"Well . . . I guess you gotta split then," Amber frowned. 

"Yeah," Willow answered, rather morose. After standing around a bit awkwardly, she finally turned and began to walk in the direction of the cash registers. 

"Wait!"

Euphoric, Willow turned around and nearly ran back to Amber, but somehow controlled herself. "Yeah?"

She shifted uneasily on her combat boots. "I know this is highly inappropriate considering that you're pregnant and you just mistook me for your ex-girlfriend but . . . do you think . . . you think I could get your number? Maybe call you sometime?"

Willow was beside herself with joy. She just refrained herself from screaming "Of course!" and instead nodded politely and wrote the number on a scrap piece of paper. Amber beamed and accepted it, promising to call her soon. They parted and Willow flew in a daze back to Spike and Buffy, who by this time had lapsed into their way of making up, full-body, crammed together against the frozen food windows. Shrugging out of the blatant public groping, Buffy broke off a passionate kiss with Spike and peeked over his shoulder to see Willow with a blissfully silly look on her face. 

"What's with you?" Buffy asked, straightening and smoothing her clothes. 

"Nothing . . ." Willow sighed contentedly. "Just saw the face of an angel, that's all . . ."


	10. Edgy Bedfellows

AN: Once again I must rant about how amazed I am over how quickly I'm updating. Don't think I'll make a habit of this however, these chapters were written in one weekend, so I merely have to upload the chapters. For any readers of "Fortunate Son", that'll take me more time to update unfortunately. And thanks again to all the reviewers! :)   
  
Chapter 10: Edgy Bedfellows  
  
Spike clapped his hands together loudly and galloped down the stairs, ready to indulge in some daytime programming action. He stalked into the living room where a sniffling Willow sat cuddled on the couch, watching TV. A snowstorm of crumpled, moist tissues surrounded her, but Spike remained oblivious to all of this as he snatched up the remote control and switched "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" to his own channel.  
  
"Hey!" Willow protested. "I was watching that!"  
  
Spike ungraciously plopped onto the couch and steadied his elbows on his knees in expectation. "Sorry Red, but you can watch Jim Dandy Stewart play the do-gooder another time. Passions is on."  
  
Willow swiped the remote, flipping back to American Movie Classics. "I said I was watching it. This is only the sixth time I've seen it, I have to make sure Mr. Smith defeats the evil plutocrats of Washington."  
  
Spike gave her a cold hard look of incredulity. "Are you daft woman? This is Passions we're talking about. While you keep sniveling away at the Frank Caprasonian lameness, I'm missing the heartfelt reunion between Luis and Sheridan."  
  
Willow ceased her sniffling to deliver a venomous glower to Spike. She looked up at him in a way that made him feel blessed to have missed out on last spring's "Black Magic Girls Gone Wild 2002". If she was scaring the hell out of him now, he didn't even want imagine the look ol' Warren got minutes before Willow fillet-of-souled him. With danger in her eyes, fueled primarily by rising hormones, Willow uttered two words: "Well bollocks."  
  
Spike paused, but continued grappling with her. "Come on, give it," he demanded, holding his hand out for the remote.  
  
"No." Willow held it high in the air, veering it away from him.  
  
"Don't even test me Red, give it."  
  
"No."  
  
"Give it!"  
  
"Oh now that you've asked nicely . . . no." Willow's voice was cold.  
  
He lunged swiftly, grabbing the remote with lighting-like quickness. He changed the channel and looked to Willow with a smug smirk. Willow resumed shooting daggers his way.  
  
"Change it back Spike."  
  
He gave her a cocky leer. "Or what, pet? Whatcha gonna do to me? Eviscerate my entrails? Try running me over with a twelve-wheeler? Hurl a big ol' ball of combustion my way?"  
  
Willow was stung by the reference to last year and froze. For a moment, she looked like she was going to do all of those things, which Spike expected with a leer still in place. But then to his horror, her face crumpled into a teary frown and she began emitting whimpering-like, tiny sobs that gave way to noisier weeping.  
  
Spike stared at her and shuffled his feet in guilt, cursing himself silently. How the hell did he ever get himself into this mess? Since when did he become so concerned about injuring Red's feelings? Oh, he could stand up to the best and bloodiest of the demon world, but give him one very pregnant redhead and his cool cockiness crumbled immediately. "Balls," he sighed, threading a hand through blonde hair as Willow continued crying. "I can't win." He threw the remote back at Willow, who grabbed it with a quick, satisfied smile that made Spike's blood boil and his eyes narrow into slits.  
  
Damn Willow. Damn her. Damn whatever major estrogen trip she was on that was lodging a bug up her ass the size of Texas. Damn the damned pregnancy that made damned Willow so damned anal in the damn first place.  
  
Goose-stepping into the kitchen, Spike found Buffy tiredly cleaning shards of glass from the floor that lay in a pool of milk. He launched into whining immediately.  
  
"Buffy you know the living room is under my sole dominion every weekday, three to four in the afternoon. You know this. It's an established fact."  
  
Buffy sighed as she crouched on the floor, handling the glass carefully. "You can watch your little show upstairs honey."  
  
"Upstairs?! Upstairs the woman says, ha!" Spike shook his head disgustedly. "I don't get the full cinematic experience of the 27-inch upstairs."  
  
"Well tough Spike, I guess you'll just have to skip a day of Timmy and the gang with as little suffering as possible."  
  
"Why can't I just kick Red out? It's not her bloody television after all."  
  
"It's not yours either," Buffy pointed out.  
  
Spike shrugged. "Hey, we're practically living a common law marriage, what's yours is mine, baby."  
  
Buffy sighed. "Look Spike, just leave her alone. It took me forever just to get her out of the kitchen. She's been driving me crazy all afternoon, at least this way, she's somewhat quiet."  
  
Spike suddenly became aware of the mess Buffy was rummaging through. "What happened 'ere?" he said, cocking his head at the mop and dustpan stationed nearby. "Snacking accident, someone running with scissors, what?"  
  
"Willow dropped the bottle of milk," Buffy explained with a sigh. "And she wouldn't stop apologizing for it. She made it seem like she had committed an act of high treason. And let me tell you, the tears? Made Noah's little crisis look like a rain shower."  
  
Spike made a face as he collapsed on a stool by the kitchen island. "Red's getting a little too hard to handle, isn't she? Her emotions go willy-nilly and all across the spectrum."  
  
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Tell me about it. My level of impatience with her and her stupid hormones makes me seriously question the whole slayer clause of not being able to kill people. Maybe Faith had the right idea after all."  
  
Spike smirked. "So a pregnant best friend is all that's needed to pull you to the dark side, is it? Wish I had known that back in the day."  
  
Buffy shot a half-chastising, half-loving grin, wrinkling her mouth into the crinkle that Spike always loved. With a sudden wicked gleam in his eye, he neared her in a long, seductive swagger.  
  
"Well . . . if Red's so suddenly preoccupied," he said, his voice came out low and whispery. "Maybe she won't notice if we . . . y'know . . . preoccupy ourselves." Spike snaked an arm around Buffy's waist, prompting a lascivious smile. Giggling, Buffy laced her fingers around Spike's neck and relaxed into his arms. With Willow constantly around, it seemed like they never had enough privacy to do this. She was making a nightly habit of perching by their bed, complaining of an unquenchable desire for strange foods, like salami or oysters or curry, so having some time to themselves at night seemed out. And during the day, Buffy was either too busy counseling at the high school or straitjacketing Willow from pregnant insanity. So even fifteen minutes of zipping off into the laundry room for some "romantic rendez-vous-ing" was out as well.  
  
"Dawn's upstairs studying . . ." Buffy said, playfully tracing patterns on Spike's chest. "Wouldn't want to disturb her . . . "  
  
"Well we could always sneak off to the basement," Spike suggested with an evil raise-of-the-eyebrow. "Just a plug-n-chug for a few minutes and no one would be the none the wiser."  
  
Buffy smacked him. "Pig! 'Plug n' chug'? That's you're idea of seduction?"  
  
"What would you prefer? Tennyson? Keats? 'Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, to feel forever its soft fall and swell, awake forever in a sweet unrest, still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, and so live ever--or else swoon to death'?"  
  
Buffy rolled her eyes. "'Buffy, you're beautiful' would've done."  
  
Spike chuckled and caught her lips into a passionate, stormy embrace. Moaning contentedly, Buffy curled her arms around his neck even tighter and followed his lead, backing up towards the door of basement. Blindly reaching her hand out for the knob, she began to slump onto the door as the embrace became harder to control. They almost forgot entirely about the basement as Spike moved his hand up to the collar of her blouse, reaching for a button and-----  
  
Sniff, sniff. "That was such a wonderful movie," came a teary sob. Sniff, sniff.  
  
Heaving a loaded sigh, Spike sank against Buffy, who of course turned out of the kiss to gaze begrudgingly at Willow.  
  
"Willow . . . crying . . . again." Buffy tried to look pleased with the inappropriate timing of her best friend, but she couldn't help but sound flat. "Didn't the movie just cheer you right up?"  
  
Willow nodded, blowing her nose with another tissue. "It was great, it was heart-warming . . . I'm just . . . I'm so happy," she said in another strangled sob.  
  
Spike broke apart from Buffy and shook his head, puckering his brow. Trying to suppress his disappointment, he shrugged and made his way to the living room. "Well at least I get to watch my program now. Have fun comforting the emotional train wreck. See you in a couple of hours."  
  
Willow pulled her lip into a pout. "Emotional train wreck? I am not an emotional train wreck! Just look at me, I'm a fortress of emotional solidarity and----oh! Someone bought a new pack of Ho-Hos!" She immediately turned her attentions the snack food and began stuffing her face with blissful sighs and once again, tears. "They're just so good," she was lamenting. "I've never tasted anything so good!"  
  
Buffy resisted the urge to cram every last Ho-Ho into Willow's mouth just to get her quiet. "That's great Willow, but . . . don't you think you should . . . y'know . . . get out more?"  
  
Willow frowned with the snack food in her mouth. "Where did that come from?"  
  
"Well it just seems like you've spent the last few weeks cooped up inside the house all mopey and brooding, eating compulsively and crying over toothpaste commercials. I just think it would be good for you to get out of the house more, do things."  
  
Willow straightened derisively. "You make me sound like some trailer trash hermit who uses a rag on a stick to wash herself. I think I'm doing fine."  
  
Buffy gave her a knowing look. "Willow, it's 3:14 in the afternoon and you're still in your pajamas and you still haven't showered. I'm beginning to think that the rag and stick aren't too far off."  
  
"Hey!" The pout was returning, but the whininess was replaced by flickers of anger. "Nice way to talk to the gal who's carrying your little bundle of cross-dimensional, genetically freakish joy. If you think I'm broody and mopey, well . . . that's not really my fault is it? I'm only dealing with the crap you and Spike gave me."  
  
Buffy began to feel anger towards her best friend rise in her as well. "Lots of people get pregnant Willow. It's not an excuse you can use to say, "Stop everything while I spend the next nine months on the couch with one hand up the cookie jar"."  
  
"I'm doing the best I can, okay? You think I like this situation any more than you do? You think I like lugging around this watermelon I call a stomach? You think I like that this kid makes me do nothing but go through tissue and prepackaged snack boxes by the dozen? You think I'm overly ecstatic about having to go through all of this for some child that isn't even mine?"  
  
Willow paused and there was real hurt and anger in her voice and Buffy knew not how to respond to this. A part of her was still inflamed with annoyance and irritation towards Willow, but another part of her gave way to slight guilt. In the larger picture, Willow was right. It wasn't really her fault she was acting this way. She had a perfect right to be acting this way. The only reason she was acting this way was because of something Buffy and Spike had inadvertently created. Buffy didn't have much of a right of demanding Willow to cheer up just because her moods were inconveniencing everyone else. Buffy knew this logically, but it didn't do much to ease the frustration she presently felt. So she just stared at Willow, teeth on edge. Willow glared right back and the tension in the room was more than palpable.  
  
Suddenly the shrill cry of the phone ringing broke through the unspoken and heavy ill will. Buffy crept over to pick it up, never removing her edgy glance from Willow. "Hello?" Her voice was inappropriately hard for such a greeting.  
  
"Hi, umm, could I talk to Willow?"  
  
Buffy hesitated when she heard the feminine voice come clear and heady across the line. It was vaguely familiar somehow in a way she couldn't place. The warmness, the intonation . . . it reminded her of someone . . .  
  
Buffy handed the phone to Willow, who accepted it with a confused look. "Hello?" Buffy folded her arms across her chest and watched her, still finding reasons to be irritated with her. But her irritation began to fade as she saw Willow's expression turn from agitated and hurt to positively jubilant. And she wondered who it was that could possibly make Willow glow this way. She tried to discern who it was, but she couldn't gather much from the broken bits of conversation.  
  
"Right now? Why, sure! Busy . . . uh, no . . . Really? Yeah, me too! Okay . . . okay . . . of course. Okay, I'll see you there." Hanging up the phone joyfully, Willow threw a tissue at Buffy and whisked past her in excitement.  
  
Buffy stared blankly, blinking twice as her mind went over this instant metamorphosis. "What's going on?"  
  
"I'm gonna take a shower," called Willow as she scurried from the kitchen. Buffy could practically hear the smile bursting in her voice.  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
Willow paused and stuck her head back into Buffy's view. There was a gleam in her eye that Buffy hadn't seen for months. "Out." 


End file.
